January 11

I have always been someone who pays attention to anniversaries so this exercise in exploring the past on a daily basis is right up my alley. As I prepare this post on January 9, I note that Roslyn and I worked on this translation exactly a year ago – January 9, 2020!

This is one of Helene’s more heartbreaking letters – filled with sadness, joy, relief, love, regret, feeling of being an outsider.  Everl is one of Helene’s nicknames for Eva.

Istanbul, 11 January 1946

My dear children, poor like a church mouse but still rich in piled up feelings of love for you and in gratitude that the Fates have taken you out of the collapse of Europe and to the other hemisphere and that you are rich in experiences that I could collect. You will see me - I will look very different on the outside, but in my heart, I will still be the same old me and hopefully you will be able to receive me very soon. My brain box which was once an exemplary card catalog kept in the best order, where all I had to do was push a button if I wanted an address, a telephone number, or maybe a passage from some work, now doesn’t work as well as it did three years ago. I have forgotten a lot. I wanted and want to forget certain things, but here Fate was kind to me and I have not forgotten the happiness that I experienced when we still lived with each other and for each other. If the Nazis had been able to think up a way of putting this old expression into work - memories are a paradise we can’t be chased away from. If they had been able to delete that, I’m sure they would have done so.

I am sending Hilda, Tillie, and Harry my most sincere wishes for happy birthdays. Everl and her husband I wish to all the best on their anniversary and that our European sadness will turn into American happiness and joy. I have certainly counted on the fact that this week of family celebration is something I will be able to spend with you, and it would have also been possible if I hadn’t been thrown to the wolves again. But in Vienna, one said: “if God wishes, then the broom will stand up.” And certainly God wants me to have you again.

At the beginning of November I got a letter from Robert, a letter which brought tears of emotion to my eyes. Condensed love and faithfulness and connection, really the first letter that I have received in Istanbul. Unfortunately, the letter took 2 months to get here and in his impatience, he wrote that he had been so long without an answer. There’s such a love-filled letter from the Sevillas [I am unsure of the name – I think it is the married name of one of Vitali’s sisters in Istanbul]. I asked to keep the letter, but there was no way to do that. Robert thanked me in this letter for all the friendliness and things people had done to make it easier for me. This letter is making the rounds to all of the faith community. …

I have met some fine people here, friends, not relatives, which have really been a lot of support. I don’t mean that our relatives were bad to me, but I was sort of a stranger to them from the first day when I arrived here in Turkey without Vitali and I for my part tried my best to overcome these feelings of being foreign or strange to them. I tried and I still try, but it doesn’t seem to have any success. The irreconcilable contrast between east and west when you experience them as a mature person and not become part of such an experiment as a child. Delicacy, empathy, and tact are not part of the lexicon of those who live here.

What really made me sad is that I was continually aware of the fact that I was in Vitali’s native city without him. Especially the Galatia Bridge when you come from the Stamboul side to the Galatia side, it reminded me of the Vienna and the Swedish Bridge, and I understand now only too well that Vitali particularly loved this area. Actually, the neighborhood where I find myself housed reminds me quite a bit of Schillerhof [a neighborhood in Vienna]. The second reason why I’m melancholy is that all the refugees are traveling via England and get direct mail from America, but I don’t and almost all my letters are returned to me as undeliverable. But that’s all a matter in the past. I’m hoping that I will be with you soon.

Greet Paul, Schillers, Zentner’s, Firestones, Fuldas from me. Did Tillie’s brother recover completely?

I send hugs and kisses to all of you

In love

Helen

I had read one or two letters sent from Istanbul in 1945 that Helene wrote in English but these translated letters gave me a much clearer picture of Helene’s life in Istanbul. The relatives in Istanbul had no idea what had happened in Europe and had faced their own difficulties over the past few years. As always, sending and receiving mail was a challenge. Helene didn’t have an address book and did not know or remember her relatives’ addresses in San Francisco. Amazing that they were able to reconnect before the internet.