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Today we have another letter from Helene in Vienna to her children in San Francisco. When the children came to the U.S., they were split up and sent to live with different relatives and attend different high schools.
Vienna, 23 July 1940
My dear children. It’s not easy for me to write to you today because I am very worried about Harry because I haven’t heard a single line from him. On the other hand, I don’t want to worry you or fill your heads with worry if it’s just a matter of a disreputable postal service, so you must keep in mind that I am worried and try to put yourself in my shoes, even if just for a few moments. Time is really dragging from one postal delivery to the next and the disappointed hopes when no letter arrives cause an emptiness which is quite agonizing. My attempts to form a halfway reasonable thought are not going to be as successful today. However, just to reassure you about how we are doing, I do assure you that we are healthy and everything is going fine except for the agonizing worry which does disappear when the writing from little Harry will appear, which we so desire. In lighter moments I say to myself that Eva’s dear little letter of the 3rd of this month is so filled with happiness that the thought that there could be anything wrong with Harry is absurd. But then come the evil thoughts like demons and they whisper to me: “How does Eva know how Harry is doing because they’re not together anymore?” I feel sorry for Papa who has to put up with my presence on such days. He really earns my admiration.
There’s a little showpiece from our wax figure shop: an old man, forgive the expression, but the man was old, even for an old man - he was closer to 100 than 90. He came into the store, trembling and halting, asked for a postcard of Egypt. While Papa was sticking Ramses into an envelope, the old guy said “One more time I’d like to climb up on a pyramid and spit on the entire world.” When Papa asked him “why do you want to go to so much trouble?”, he put his treasure in his pocket, coughing, he said his goodbyes and he left the store, and in his mind he was probably already back in the land of the Pharaohs. There’s got to be some sort of philosophy of life implied in this wish of the old man - to spit on the entire world, well, sure that’s a very freeing thought! I really can’t do anything more today. Maybe there’s mail from you on Friday and I will make everything right again. Please write in detail and soon and please say hello to all of our dear ones most sincerely.
In love,
Your Mutti
Helen
There is a handwritten note at the top that numbers this Letter as #42 since 2 letters were sent that were numbered #39. However, I do not have a #39 in my archive. We saw 2 letters with Clipper No. 40 in the post on July 19 — perhaps that is what Helene meant. Or perhaps letters #39 never made it to their destination.
As with the July 19 post, we have a window into the non-metaphysical world of Helene and Vitali’s stationery shop Libansky & Co, eking out a living selling pencil sharpeners and picture postcards.
Harry was a bit of a hoarder, but only in one room and more I think from a sense that everything could come in handy and that one never knows when you’ll need to escape and will have no resources. Not a surprising attitude, given his life experience. My mother Eva was similar. Neither Eva nor Harry were very good at organizing their possessions with any rhyme or reason. They tossed odd assortments of things into boxes and put them “away”, rarely being able to find something that had been put into a safe place. The boxes might have letters, photos, paper clips, pens, pads of paper, knick knacks, etc. Like a little box of treasure. Which my cousins and I thought of as junk.
In the last few years of Harry’s life, I helped him organize his things. I didn’t have a lot of hope about making progress, but it was a wonderful excuse to spend time with him. I made him promise not to throw out important papers or photos, and he kept that promise, as evidenced by this blog. He held out the prospect of our going through the photos one day when we were “done,” something I realized we’d never be.
On one of our sorting sessions, we came across the small leather portfolio in the photo below. It was in great condition and I didn’t think much of it. Something he’d hung onto but seemed ready to let go of. I was eager to add it to the pile to go to the thrift shop. However, when I opened the portfolio, there was the label, which meant nothing to me. Harry off-handedly mentioned that the label was from his parents’ shop in Vienna. I had never known the name and suddenly this worthless item was priceless to me. I took it home to keep it safe, so it wouldn’t be thrown back into a box of stuff, perhaps never to be unearthed again.
Below is a page of stationery stores from the 1925 phone book from Vienna. At the bottom of the left column, my grandmother’s name is listed as the proprietor of Libansky & Co. (highlighted in green)
