Today’s letter is from January 29, 1940. Helene is writing to her nephew Paul in San Francisco. He arrived in the US in early 1939 and helped pave the way for Eva and Harry’s arrival in October 1939. You can see from the letter that she has been starved for news of her children since they left.

Censorship stamps appear on the bottom. There are always 2 stamps, so presumably each letter had to pass through at least 2 sets of hands before being allowed to be sent on to the recipient. Helene’s first few letters in late 1939 were handwritten. At one point she switches to typing, telling her children that she thinks it will make it easier on the censors and they will be more likely to allow the letters to go through.  As we have seen a few times already, Helene packs as much as she can onto the page, using few paragraph breaks. She often used a hyphen within a paragraph to indicate what would be a new paragraph.

Vienna 29, January 1940

 

Paul, do you know what it’s like to have gone 4 months without news? Your card from the day of your arrival in Frisco began the dance. A letter from the children from the 19th or 28th of December mailed on January 2 continued the dance. The joy over getting that was however rather darkened by the news about Everl’s tooth problems. Poor kid. So much she suffered in order to save her teeth and it was all for nothing. In thinking of this matter, I remembered the unbelievable brutality of the heart of our … relatives and I try hard to forget this terrible event. But I did observe that all that I forgot about the intentionally-inflicted offenses that he committed against the parents, Irma, Mattl, and me, but what he did to Eva, a mother cannot forget that. You know, I am not of an unforgiving nature, and you know that I never talked about these things even though they really bothered me, but this thing with Eva’s health and how he was so indifferent to it, and that for a doctor. Now that makes me unforgiving. But let’s leave that theme behind and talk about more pleasant things. Now I know finally how long you’ve been in San Francisco, because since I received my birthday message, the question was “I wonder how long has Paul been in California?” A big puzzle between us and now except for the evening tric-trac game [a French game like backgammon], it was really our only distraction. At the time of the brownout, we were out and we were going to an invitation in the Köstlergasse. I might have believed that I would have found my way with my eyes closed, but oh, suddenly Vitali stumbled over a pile of snow and I was horrified and I dropped my purse. Then we managed to get all of our possessions back in order and got ourselves together and there I was going around the pile of snow in pitch black night, just like the father with the dead ram in the Ollerlee Gschichten [“All Sorts of Stories” in dialect]. I really had lost my way. Then I remembered something that Harry said when he was a little boy and I used to take him with me when I took care of my errands. In an old Viennese house … there was an engraver who was going to prepare a die cast. He had a spiral staircase which only someone who didn’t have vertigo could ever use to go up to the third floor. That led to the workshop of my engraver. I felt my way with Harry in front of me, sort of pushing him along carefully, to said workshop. But when we even more carefully were coming back down and we managed to arrive safe and sound downstairs, we couldn’t seem to find our way in the bright sun. Harry’s succinct comment was “Well if you come down from there, you’re like a cave salamander.” His knowledge of zoology came from a charming picture book by Uriel Birnbaum which he had gotten from Olga Nussbaum for his birthday. No, I don’t think I can devolve into a cave salamander.

I suppose that the children have received the 3 letters I have sent and that the other ones will reach you as well and that I will be kept in the loop conscientiously and thus you will inform us of everything that involves us. Please, dear Paul, when you write to me to the extent that you have time, please write in detail and also make sure I know about your health and that of the children. I really need to be kept informed about exactly what’s going on. ….

There is not really much to say about us. I leave the house twice a week to go shopping; and the daily needs such as bread and whole milk, Vitali takes care of that, because he has to do something new with his original business hours. I believe that he would stand his ground even without taking a butler course….Eva promised to send me a sketch of the family tree of the Lowells. Tell her that she should not forget, because I am very keen to get my bearings in this family.

Paula B was coming to us every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday until very recently, but these regular visits were interrupted by the brownout conditions. She only comes over now when there’s a full moon.

We still haven’t received any kind of dispatch from Ankara, although the consulate here knows about the urgency of our matters. Vitali has been forbidden to undertake any kind of activity. The sale of unnecessary objects is how we are paying for our expenses. However, Vitali would be very well able to support himself anywhere.

My better half (the one across from me) notices that I am acting in an impossible way toward you Americans because I am writing such long letters to a “land where time money is”. I will follow his advice and stop now, but mostly because I am tired and moreover, I have nothing more to say.

I hope to hear from you again and I remain with many kisses

Helene

This letter explains to me why my mother wore dentures, even when I was a child. I cannot imagine the pain she went through. Self-conscious enough being a stranger in a new country, and now she had many of her teeth after years of painful treatment in Vienna. My mother was a stoic and had a high tolerance for pain so she always never took Novocain, saying the numbness lasted longer and was more uncomfortable.

It sounds like the dentist who treated my mother in Vienna was a relative who had treated Helene and her family painfully years earlier. Presumably he moved his practice from Bilin to Vienna. One of my own early memories of visiting a dentist was seeing an older European man (perhaps some relation? hopefully not the same man!) who treated me without pain medication. It was torture and we immediately switched to a new dentist.

I loved reading about Helene and Vitali whiling away the evenings playing tric-trac. Towards the end of my mother’s life, Harry would visit and they would play backgammon together. Now I realize they were revisiting their childhood!

Helene manages to keep a bright tone while telling her children some chilling facts about how life has changed. In just a few months since Eva and Harry left, Helene’s and Vitali’s lives are far more confined – leaving the house less often, business hours being cut, power outages, friends not visiting as often, selling “unnecessary objects” to pay for necessities.

One of the things I appreciate about Helene’s letters is how it gives us a window into my mother’s and Harry’s childhood. Not having much to write about and not wanting to worry her children, she often recalls memories of happier times together.