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Today’s letter from Helene in Vienna to her nephew Paul Zerzawy is from May 30, 1939, several weeks after his arrival in America. Her children Eva and Harry are in Istanbul establishing citizenship to be able to get Turkish passports to emigrate; Helene is experiencing her first relatively brief separation from her children.
Vienna, 30 May 1939
My dear Paul! We got your letter from the 9th and started right away to acquire the brochures you asked for. We enclose those which we could get here from Breitkopf & Härtel [musical publishing house]. And we could get some from Frieda Benninghoven [another publisher?]. Some of them will take longer to get to us because of Pentecost. The Pentecost hustle and bustle means that getting a letter from Hanover to Vienna takes 2-1/2 days. Unbelievable. At the same time, I asked Jo to get me some English brochures from Piscarer [sp? London publisher?] to send. Maybe these will be of some advantage to you as well. As soon as I get something, I will send it right to you. In the “estate” you left behind I didn’t really find anything. Vitali prepared a list and in the notes I have enclosed you will find such things from the possessions of the Cohen children. A part of this may have been your stuff. There is a considerable amount of song and music [also refers to title of an old march Mit Sang und Klang ] and precious gems (really more like gravel). You’ll find that too.
The biggest surprise is that the children have been in Istanbul for five weeks. And they are doing well in making progress in French, Turkish, and Spanish. But you probably already know that from my earlier letters.
Our life is rushing back and forth without any pause and we are now trying to make the impossible possible and trying to get to the children soon. Our little ship had a leak in the helm, but we hope that you know how optimistic we are that it will be possible for us to plug this leak and get back to our preparations to go home.
I thank you for all the trouble you’ve gone to about hurrying up our entry visa. It was certainly well intended but actually it served no purpose, as we have Tillie who is keeping us apprised of things and the documents that we have sent to you.
I’m including some copies of the first letters we’ve gotten from the children and the later ones I will make copies of those too if you tell me you are interested.
Eva is already earning some pocket money by making flowers. She would probably get a lot more customers if she knew Turkish. And she tells me in the letter that she regrets that you did not go to Istanbul too because lawyers get rich there - there are so few of them. I however am glad that a great big body of water is separating you from us.
I am dumbfounded by the practical nature of my children. Eva writes today for the first time that she quite likes it there, that she has gotten used to it, and if it had to be, she could perhaps for financial independence stay in Istanbul. That is really not what I had in mind, but we can’t really do anything from here.
I am unhappy that my goal to have my children in my sight is not possible and I feel powerless here. The last few necessary steps are the ones I cannot take. When the children were here, we were strongly handicapped and now we really haven’t come much farther. Uncle seems to pull the strings at the highest level, but bureaucrats are the same everywhere. We would probably need to hide the key for the bathroom up higher.
You can hardly imagine a more useless existence than what we lead here. We take care of our cadaver and we try to damage as little as possible so that we will survive the trip.
Vitali went to see Marie yesterday. Both women are healthy and they are waiting. We are all waiting. There is nothing to do but wait here. It is our new profession. I have turned into a typewriter.
My types are all worn out but as long as I am in Vienna, I must take advantage of it. In the train from Vienna to Istanbul, Vitali’s portable radio will work.
I haven’t heard anything from Paula Beckhor in 8 days, but usually we call each other and she comes over quite often.
Paula F. is going to “see” her four children today. I am reading through your letter and I see that at one point I touched upon your wishes. My thoughts are jumping around. The thoughts are ripe and excuse my absent-mindedness. I could never have imagined that a person who doesn’t really have a career could be under pressure.
But you know the “road to Canossa,” where it’s necessary to do that to make progress to get away from here.
Of your things, I have all of your notes, I have books, notebooks, and documents, and pictures. The other things I did get rid of. I did burn some correspondence and newspapers, postcards; in other words, things I instinctively knew were just a burden.
I did consider the possibility of sending things by post, but I just need a few more days until I could get done with the burden of my taxes. Poor Schiller, he would have to be turning over in his grave if he read this letter, not just because I quote him incorrectly.
The children know about your situation, because I send them copies of your letters and those from Robert as well. Unfortunately, I have not heard from Robert for 14 days now, so I sent Vitali to … I am writing to them pretty often so I hope to get answers soon.
Please do greet the Schillers for me and don’t let me wait too long for news because I have not found my way to the fate of Penelope, and now I realize my old sins of omission and I could just cry at the thought that I did something to the people who matter the most to me, that the weakness of my will may have unintentionally tortured them. Today I can’t really make it right again because the waiting is all we do. We have to wait for a fair, but possibly harsh punishment.
The best to you Paul. Begin your new life in the new world with just as much optimism as you had pessimism in the old world. Keep your head high, whatever happens.
You will hear from me soon and I don’t expect an answer, because otherwise there will be pauses. Somehow it seems to know no bounds.
With many kisses, I am
Your old
HelenFrieda just brought over some more catalogs. Continuation to follow.
It appears that mail was very fickle. Sometimes it took months or never arrived at all. This letter was written on May 30, 1939 and was received by Paul Zerzawy (either in San Francisco or New York) on June 6. Pretty quick even by today’s standards.
As Helene and Vitali do in 1941 as they prepare to come to America, Paul Zerzawy took little with him and left a lot of things behind.
This letter answers a question I had – how do I have letters from Eva and Harry that they sent to their parents from Istanbul to Vienna? Helene sent them to Paul Zerzawy so he would be kept up to date with what was happening and he kept them. It continues to amaze me how much information was shared across continents. We take for granted the ability to communicate far and wide with the internet, but people have always found ways to stay in touch with their loved ones, overcoming many hurdles and impediments.
My mother told me that she had learned silk flower making in Istanbul – the relatives thought that would be a good skill and that she could make a lot of money selling them. She brought the tools with her to the U.S. When I saw the Degas, Impressionism, and the Paris Millinery Trade exhibition at the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco in 2017, I thought of my mother. You can see examples of hats trimmed with silk flowers from the exhibition here. By 1939, in the U.S. such an occupation was not as lucrative as Eva’s relatives imagined. Probably better that she became a nurse!
Below are photos of the materials Eva brought with her, including a cardboard stencil of flower petals with the flowers’ names written in German.
