Today we have a letter from Helene to her nephew Paul Zerzawy in San Francisco.
Vienna 7 June 1940
Dear Paul!
You should not without punishment have given me your private address. I will be using it an awful lot, but you will be disappointed because the content of my letters will not please you. I knew that you were able to evaluate my confused letters correctly, and that the children would understand my letters only literally and not read too much into them. Their departure was delayed far too long for me to have no real reason to believe that their young souls might have been damaged by this. There are experiences that one cannot erase from one’s memory. Sometimes they slip into a secret compartment of the brain and then something makes them reappear. The longer the unpleasant memories stay in the brain safe, the better it is for the young minds. So if my letters are perceived and understood by the children in the way that you have described to me, my intention to leave them carefree has been completely successful. As far as your guilty conscience, you should just take some valerian and don’t take things so hard. You have already known about our attitude and our tribulations of life for a while. I went through the school of hard knocks, so I sort of take things quietly the way they come. Now you should not overemphasize the value of things any more than you can that of people. What does it matter when we’ve had to sell our bedroom? We can sleep just as well on a field bed that’s been lent to us and our digestion will not suffer if we no longer have a dining room. I would however have wished that we could have brought our grand piano. Since you three aren’t using it anymore, it sort of turned my former joy into the opposite, but that’s just a matter of mood and one should not be caught up in these waves. My desire to see you again is so vehement that I am determined that our departure will happen soon even though there is not even the slightest reason to think so. Father has his “one gets everything in life which he wishes for intensely.” He always insists that that’s the way it is, even though it doesn’t necessarily happen at the time you want. Whenever that time will happen, it will certainly make me happy. You should not worry about our pecuniary situation. Certainly, neither Vitali nor I have any way of earning any money, but the little that we need to live on we are managing to come up with by selling off the last few items we have in the business and the larger expenses such as taxes and interest are going to be taken care of by selling our furniture. I have already written you once that the Druseidt [?] have found someone to buy their business. Help, such as material help from relatives, I would only want to accept in the most desperate of situations - maybe to help us emigrate, but who knows when that will be. Tomorrow there are new regulations for post with neutral foreign countries. Illegible letters will not be sent so they should be written on a typewriter wherever possible and not be longer than four pages.
I am glad that you are doing well and that you and the children are in such contact. I couldn’t have imagined that in my wildest dreams. Nor could I imagine that you would have gotten used to it so quickly. Please write as soon as you can and think about the fact that the letters have to go a long way and often arrive late and sometimes not at all. 14 days without mail I’ve had just now again. A long time when one is as hungry for news as I am.
See you Paul and prove that you are thinking of us by writing a few letters even if it’s just something you add to the children’s letters.
In love that knows no bounds
Your
Helen
Helene’s first few lines are interesting when considering Harry’s illustrated newsletter from 1939 that was posted yesterday. Harry’s tone was light and hopeful, an excited teenager enjoying the adventure and possibility of being in a new place. Helene makes clear that she and Vitali have done everything they could to shield their children from the worst of her worries. I don’t know how successful she was, but the Harry and Eva at least put up a brave face in their letters to her.
This letter was written in 1940 and already they have little way of making money. They are selling their furniture and hoping to leave for America soon. It’s hard to imagine what they lived on in Vienna for the next three and a half years. It must have been such a relief to Helene that her nephew Paul was in San Francisco and could keep an eye on his young cousins.