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Today we have a letter from Helene in Vienna to her children Eva and Harry in San Francisco. As in a previous letter, they are still awaiting their visa from the American Consulate which has irritatingly closed during the last two weeks in June. They have tickets for a ship voyage from Italy to America on July 15.
Friday, 27 June 1941
My dear children!
There has been a terrible mugginess here the last few days, which has a debilitating effect on one, but what is debilitating me even worse is the fact that I have still not received any letters from you. We are experiencing the longest day, not just in the sense of the calendar but with the effects of not getting any mail and the fact that nothing is happening with our matters of emigration. We are living in such an abnormal time that the meaning of all geographical and astronomical concepts has shifted. For example, we have here at the same time the longest days and the longest nights. When we are able to be with you again, it’ll be the opposite. We are waiting every day 48 hours for the visa. You try doing that! The feeling of missing the train and waiting for the next one at the train station is coming over me when I look at our suitcases that are already packed. I could write a book about that. “The suitcases are looking at you!” Downright reproachfully. I suppress the wish to get a handkerchief in the most valiant way because I don’t want to have to open a suitcase. Every day I have washing to do because I have organized the changing of clothes in such a way that one set is drying while the other is being worn. You will tell me that that is how you do things in America. That’s true, but it’s only when you’re talking about underwear which is so easy to wash it’s like child’s play. But that’s not true of the sheets on the bed or the things you have to wash in the house. But what kind of nonsense am I telling you? I find that when I am writing to you, I need to keep my temperament in check because I don’t want you to be witnesses to an emotional outburst. And so I will end now. Maybe the days will start to get shorter again by Tuesday.
With many kisses
Helen