Helene often included separate letters to her children and family in the same envelope. On January 24, 1941, Helene wrote to both Harry and Eva. Each letter has the same Clipper Number, although they have different censorship numbers. You can read the letter to Eva where Helene recalls taking a walk through Vienna with her stubborn toddler.
I imagine Eva looked a lot like this photo taken in September 1923 PH.0422.1923:
One of the things stolen from Helene was being able to see her children grow up. In this letter to Harry, she tries to give him dating advice from across the miles and across the many weeks and months it took mail to arrive. When Harry left Vienna, he was 15 years old. She’d already been separated from him for at least 6 months while he and Eva waited in Istanbul to get passports. At the time of this letter, he had just turned 17.
To keep the tone light and to express her affection for her children, she constantly played with their names, language, and puns.
Clipper 69 My dear Harry! Vienna 24 January 1941
This week we got letters from all of you, especially from you, letters # 11-12 from November 26. We also got a Firestone-Zerzawy from November 23. Great joy and delight is therefore the order of the day in Seidlgasse because we were really getting tired of waiting.
Well, I understand from your last couple of letters that the eternal female has both attracted and repelled my son for the very first time. Yes, none of us are spared such experiences. They are painful, but they are necessary. Once we’ve had this childhood disease, we recover from it and we are a better person. Such childhood diseases are different from other diseases in that they are harmless and seldom have complications. However, you get them more often. And the more often the better because often enough you emerge from such an affair more steady or steadfast. …. It would be horrifying if you had to stay with the first person you had a romantic relationship with. You see everything with your rose-colored glasses, which you probably bought from an optician at the state fair. Young people usually don’t have the money or experience that would tell them that that which is not so costly is actually cheap in quality. The next attack will be easier and less painful. If you want to make a collection of theoretical experiences, then it’s better probably better to read old Roman authors like Ovid, not German philosophers like Schopenhauer. Maybe by the time you get this letter you are already in a new love affair. But maybe none of this. The best cure for unhappy love is a new love. And the more often you use this home remedy, the more you will see that it is the most effective one. By the way, I agree with what Hilda has to say. Don’t make any binding promises. There’s an old joke: fall in love often, get engaged seldom, marry never. I can certainly recommend the first of those pieces of advice. The first two should only be practiced once and take your time. When it’s the right time and the desired object comes, then there is such a chasm that you can’t make a mistake. You only learn in good time to listen to your inner voice.
This letter doesn’t sound very motherly today. You’ll probably laugh at it because maybe you have already become an expert in matters of love by this time. Also, this letter will prove to you that my hands are following the biblical advice: the left hand should never know what the right hand is doing. It is possible to reconcile that with what the two want to do together, but I think it is more the fault of my thoughts which are getting all over each other. Maybe I’m rushing things here.
Tell Hilda that I was very happy about her letter and that I was amused by it too, especially the comments that Paul added to it, published as it were. Sometimes the publisher knows more what the author meant to say than the author himself. It seems like Paul is making German learning fun because he’s using using Busch* as her reading primer/textbook. That is certainly an indication that he has pedagogical talent. I think the godparents who were there when they gave him his name probably were already envisioning an academic career for him. Your sister seems to have mentioned such a predetermined career as well. Well, take care, Harryleim**. (You know what Professor Freud says about when we make a mistake, misread or misspeak something?) When I wrote “Harrylein”, I thought you will probably not find a Mary Magdalena to fall for, be taken in by, so I wrote “Harryleim”. It is not a typo. Now I really have to be done with this psychoanalytical theme because it’s time to write to a very busy Eva.
Kisses, for your whimsically overgrown chin.
Helen
A few notes from my translator on the references, puns, etc.:
*Wilhelm Busch humorist, illustrator 1832-1908)
**Pun: Harrylein = diminutive; Harryleim = “auf den Leim gehen“ means to be hoodwinked, Mary Magdalena = Mägdulein in German
Perhaps also a pun on the overgrown chin - “lianenhft” may be whimsical or lion in signature referring to Harry’s beard.