Helene was a clever, curious, articulate child. It sounds like her older sisters were much less interested in language and wordplay. She was the youngest of a large family, so her oldest sister Ida was quite a bit older than Helene. Thus, Helene became an aunt while she was still a child herself. Ida’s first child, Paul Zerzawy, was born in 1895, when Helene was about 9 years old. Helene ended up being Paul’s and his brothers’ babysitter, and had a very maternal feeling for them throughout their lives, despite their closeness in age.
Helene’s older sister Ida
In a (translated) letter to Paul in San Francisco from Helene in Vienna on March 6, 1941, she wrote the following memory of a young Paul. As with many of her letters at the time, the main point was to ask her nephew why he didn’t write more often.
Dear Paul! Your mother [Ida, Helen’s sister] calls my entry into this veil of tears a bad joke. When my father on 23 November 18.. [would have been 1886] awakened her with the words, “Get up Ida, you now have a little sister,” she turned over on the other side and said, half asleep, “Dad, I’m used to more delicate jokes from you.” She did manage to come to terms with my appearance, but she also decided to raise me in a very strict way, in order to compensate for the errors of the other siblings who spoiled me endlessly. So, for example, she didn’t let me eat too much when there was something particularly good. Later she didn’t let me read the books that made my son [Harry] blush despite Eva’s tales of working in the hospital. Ida seemed to me to have come into the world to not let me have any fun, I often thought. But I got back at her when you appeared on the scene and were spoiled much more. The “Look Ida, look what Paul can do,” was unending, and your poor mother fought against six aunts, an uncle, and a beloved pair of grandparents to let the child be. When another one came and reported to her that the wonderboy Paul had learned something amazing, she explained to us that she wanted a healthy, normal child, not a wonder child. Ida’s “spleen” was incomprehensible to all of us, especially to me who had the ambition to teach you everything I knew even though you weren’t even school age yet, which Ida had forbidden me to do. Why should I not get back at Ida because she’d always forbidden me to do what I wanted to do? I pretended that I had taught you to read. I took a book from Father’s library. It was an example book of typefaces from the company Schelter und Giesecke in Leipzig, and in this there were samples of the most delicate “Nonparaille” [apparently a small typeface] to the thickest letters for a poster and every time there was printed the following litany: “God gave us the spirit.” I decided to go get you and say “Paul, look, here it says ‘God gave us the spirit’” and I turned to another page and I explained to you again “and here it also says ‘God gave us the spirit.’ When your mother asks you ‘what does it say here?’, what are you going to say?” And you answered bravely: “God gave us the spirit.” You got an Indian donut [apparently a pastry from the 19th century - looked like a cream puff] from me and my older siblings kept a lookout when I took you by the hand and went to see Mother. “Ida, Paul already knows how to read!” Ida, who would imagine I could do anything except anything good, practically threw a crying fit and said: “I told you not to drill the child.” I did not step out of character and I took the book and said “Paul, what does it say here?” “God gave us the spirit.” Ida took the book from my hand and opened it to a different page and asked you “what does it say here?” And you answered “It also says ‘God gave us the spirit.’” Ida was getting suspicious and then she took the Neue Freie Presse [Viennese newspaper] that was right in front of her and asked you, “what does it say here Paulchen?” and you said, “God gave us the spirit.” Ida was so happy that I had only taught you to “read” that I didn’t get punished that time. So why am I telling you that? Wouldn’t it have been better if I had taught you to write? Then maybe I would have gotten a letter from you every now and then. If that were the case, then well look I would have answered your questions succinctly and I wouldn’t have to make such long introductions to my writing. Maybe you should just write to yourself. So pull yourself together and return the favor. If it weren’t for this reading instruction, at least you could thank me for the pastry. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. Vitali wants to play Tric-Trac [a backgammon-like game] so I am delivering you from the evil, Amen.
Affectionately
Helen
From Paul Zerzawy’s photo album. Probably Bilin in the early 1900’s. Helene’s mother (and thus, Paul' Zerzawy’s grandmother, as well as the grandmother of Helene’s children Harry and Eva who will be born almost 20 years later) is the older woman on the left in the back. Helene is the young woman second from the right. Possibly Paul Zerzawy is the boy in the middle reading - which by that age he actually was able to do!