11/5/1945
I received with a great pleasure your letter dated March 18/45. I am very happy to know you have got married. I hope he is a good person and will be to you a very good husband too. All my congratulations and my wishes of happiness, I think my parents told us to send theirs too, so do I.
Dear Eva, you may understand by that letter within mine that your mother is here at Istanbul. We were all very happy to know her and do you know my dear, we love her very much, she is nice and good; we often go to see her and she is nearly never alone during the week, but I myself can only see her once a week on Sunday for I work during the other days. She is as we are very anxious about uncle Vitali, I always try to distract her from bad ideas and I speak the more and more so that I think she has a headache after I am away.
We are very anxious about uncle Vitali but it’s just impossible to say that to aunt Helene so I am always lying when I am with her saying that I’m not anxious and that we’ll hear very soon about him. But do you know? I have a secret feeling that uncle Vitali is alive and healthy, it’s a strange idea perhaps but it’s very strong and according to my idea I am able to show a smiling face to your mother on this purpose.
I haven’t read your mother’s letter so I don’t know whether she wrote you about my steps in order to know about uncle Vitali. Look Eva, there is a very good person here to whom I spoke about uncle Vitali, I gave his name, address, block number and everything concerning him and told him to answer us where he is, and if they find him to declare that his wife is alive in Turkey and her relations saw her. Of course we need very much time for it but dear we must never forget that nothing is impossible under the sun and that as long as we have the hope of being helped God will always be with us.
What about Harry? Do you continually receive news of him? I hope they are very good. Please give him all my love when you write a letter. Don’t be anxious about your mother, she is with us and we’ll never let her alone. With the hope of hearing very soon good news about uncle Vitali and that as soon as war is over forever you’ll be again the whole family all alive and healthy.
I remain yours faithfully
Lisette
It appears that Lisette sent Helene’s letter from May 10 along with her own. As I have mentioned before, I do not have a family tree for Vitali’s family. She was probably the daughter of one of his sisters. Lisette echoes what we learned from Helene yesterday – that Vitali’s relatives made sure to keep her company in her first weeks in Istanbul. They tried to keep her spirits up and lied to her about whatever they thought might worry her. As usual, I am so impressed by Lisette’s fluency in English - we learned from Eva’s letters from Istanbul in 1939 that the Turkish relatives were most comfortable communicating in French and Spanish.
I often wondered why Helene and her children were so certain that they would eventually be reunited with Vitali. Lisette and at least one other person whose letters I have wrote with great confidence that they were sure Vitali was alive and well and would be joining them soon which probably gave some credence to their wishful thinking. He seems to have been such a strong personality that it was difficult to imagine him gone without a trace. In 1988 when Vitali would have been 100 years old, my mother finally said that she supposed her father would not be showing up on her doorstep.
Here is a photo from 1945 from cousin Lili in Istanbul. I assume that was Lisette’s nickname.
