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Today we have an aerogram letter from Robert Zerzawy in London to Helen Cohen and her family (including one-year old me) in San Francisco and Berkeley. For those too young to remember, an aerogram was the cheapest way to send letters internationally in the mid- to- late 20th century. The paper included its own stamp, was very light and did not require an envelope – you folded it up in a specific way and it became its own package.

Robert’s brother Paul died in 1948. After his brother died, Robert was the last survivor of his siblings. The Paul in this letter refers to Eva’s husband. Robert was born on July 27, 1899 and would have been 61 years old. Harry’s son Jonathan was 10 months old.

English in italics.

35 Matlock Court,
Kensington Park Rd.,
London, W.11.

 28.7.1960

Dear Helene, Eva, Harry, Paul and Helen Rose,

When I got your telegram with the good wishes, it was like a stone fell from my heart in a dimension that you must have heard it fall in Berkeley.

For months I had the depressing feeling that something wasn’t right. I wanted to write or send a telegraph, but that really would have been too drastic and I was also about to make a phone call. But I didn’t have any phone numbers. (It wouldn’t be a bad idea to let me know them) and to book a conversation just for the address would be very inconvenient. I was also afraid that I would just stammer on the phone and not say what I wanted to. I guess I am lazy and opportunistic and I put it off and I thought, oh you’ll hear when it’s your birthday. But I didn’t get anything yesterday and my feelings were increasingly sneaking into sadness. Today I wanted to send a telegram, and then to my great joy and relief, your telegram arrived. Thank you so much. You now understand what a burden has fallen from my soul.

Of course, I am a scoundrel: why didn’t I send something to congratulate Helen Rose on her first birthday, which is the only one I know of all your birthdays except for the one of the big Helen. Don’t you want to make that right? What are you all doing? The first two named as junior and senior come first, and Eva the leader will write to me of course (which I do give her a lot of credit for). And Harry? —well the title which I gave to myself at the beginning of this paragraph [scoundrel] I guess he can set that behind the various initials of his degrees —he has earned it too. But then it comes to me that there may be mitigating circumstances. I was probably also mistaken when before I said that Helen Rose was the youngest child of the family. The telegram speaks of grandchildren! Harry’s issue and a boy or a girl? His wife he’s withheld information about too so he is not quite the white sheep he makes himself out to be.

It is not necessary to say how much I am looking forward to the letter and photos you mentioned. I will not write again until then. I hope you are all well, which I can also say for Anne and myself. Unfortunately, we are too incapable at making any money; otherwise, I would threaten that we will show up in San Francisco someday. But probably we will have to wait for a reunion until the children are old enough and you make a jet over the weekend to London.

I don’t dare to reread the stupor I have now put on paper. I am afraid I would not send it if I did. So, I am sending this outpouring with confidence that it at least shows my great joy that you have given me a sign of life. And in case that letter hasn’t been sent yet, I am giving you the necessary push.

With my nephewish and cousinly love and affectionate greetings in which Anne wishes to join,

Robert

I am sorry that my family didn’t have the benefit of the internet and cheap telephones and the ability to be in instant communication with loved ones no matter where they were. I am particularly sad for Robert, the only one of his family who was not able to come to the U.S. Letters obviously brought him great joy, but it appears that they were few and far between, unlike the habit of letter writing of decades earlier. As we’ve seen in earlier posts – see yesterday’s post – Eva took on the mantle from her mother of family communicator. Unlike Robert’s brother Paul, I don’t think Eva and Harry knew their older cousin very well. He did not live in Vienna near them, so they probably saw him only seldom in Vienna and perhaps once in California after the war.