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Today we have an early letter from Helene in Vienna to her children in San Francisco – 18-year old Eva and 15-year old Harry.

Clipper letter No. 8, 21st December 1939

I-A-Eva!
Hi-Ha-Harry!

Two months ago today — it’s been exactly 9 weeks since you arrived in Frisco and I can only imagine your impressions of the new world, because no news from you has reached us. For heaven’s sake, not all the ships that might have brought your letters can have sunk. Have you written us by air letter? I don’t understand why other people are getting post. I hope you will get the letter from Olga pretty soon and that you will answer please.

Nothing has happened to us, and my head is doing its best to entertain you, but it’s not working today. You probably don't care very much about letters – you have new experiences every day simply because the way of life there is quite different from ours – quite apart from the current situation. I hope one day to find all about all these differences and how you feel about them when the post is working better. For now, this waste of time waiting around is bothering me, and as much as I’d like to do it, I can’t write to all my loved ones because I would have to use a dictionary for every word, so unfamiliar to me is any kind of intellectual activity right now. Please, excuses to all. A letter from you would really awaken my lust for living and give me the ability to express my feelings and thoughts again

Today I’ll leave you with this letter, which was only intended as a sign of life, and my current reluctance to write will soon turn into the opposite again.

With countless greetings and kisses to you and all the loved ones, I am your mother.

Helene

Helene begins this letter to her children by playing with the vowel sounds of the first syllables of their names. In yesterday’s post, we saw a letter she wrote to Hilda — written a year later than this one — where she parodied a popular children’s Christmas song. I wonder whether she was humming it as she wrote today’s letter? And perhaps subtly invoking the tune in her children’s minds as she began the letter.

Although we can’t read the first impressions they sent their parents, we have the letter Eva wrote to their cousin Paul Zerzawy who met their ship in New York in October and put them safely on the train to San Francisco.