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Vienna, 3 June 1941
My dear children!
Since you have been away from us, two-day holidays are a thorn in my eye. Even though I can’t say that they are stealing your letters from me, they are certainly guilty of making them quite delayed.
Yesterday my anxiety drove me to the pleasures of the Prater. As long as one looked up at the sky, it was a lovely view, but I could see ancestors, grandmother, mother and child, not dressed, but on the meadow. The Wurstl prater [amusement park part of Prater park] has changed its appearance. Several new places of merriment have been constructed, which I really wasn’t all that interested in. I was only interested in those carousels that used to be so much fun for you. At the Eisvogel [restaurant in the Prater], I wanted to buy a balloon to give it to a child in our building, but they wanted 4 RM. That was too much for me and I suppressed my maternal instincts. Yes, if it had been for Eva-child or Harry-boy I would have gone for it. Papa invited me to go to a restaurant, the one where we had eaten on the last Pentecost holiday. But I decided I didn’t want to, I said no, and we went home.
Today Papa is busy trying to give our matter a nudge, but I don’t really expect any success with this because we can’t do anything of any real meaning since we have some documents that are not here yet from Berlin. It seems like every day there’s a new edict which changes all of the preparations we’d made before. Yesterday, they said that we could take 50kg/person into the train compartment, today they say it’s 30kg. And when you consider the tare weight - our cases weigh about 2-8kg - you can imagine how hard it is to choose what to pack first. It’s clear that all the things which have the smallest value for us must be left behind in favor of those which we will really need. We pack it all in there, we take it all out again. Of course, we have differences of opinion - Papa always thinks something else is important from what I think and he doesn’t want to get rid of any of his winter clothing. But those are just symptoms of travel fever. When we hear the call: “San Francisco, all aboard,” we will even leave our hand luggage there and get on the train. Packing is just sort of a way of distracting us to make the waiting seem shorter.
See you later my little bunnies. I hug you kissing
Helen
This letter to Eva and Harry is filled with nostalgia, hope and longing — yet fear that things might not work out looms large.
As time goes by, like Helene I find myself walking streets that I’ve walked thousands of times and feeling the presence of people who are no longer there. Layers of the past overshadow what I see in front of me.
We see more of the cruel bureaucracy taunting Helene and Vitali as they plan to leave. Like their lives in Vienna which have become ever more constricted over the past few years, their luggage allowance shrinks each time they think they have a plan.