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Today’s letter is from Helene in Vienna to her children in San Francisco.
Vienna, 10 November 1940
My dear children!
I can confirm that I received your letter #7 from October 24; it’s taking a little longer now. Everl is grumbling because the two hours of work on Sunday is divided up in such a clumsy way. Of course, like everything else, this has its good and bad sides. On a Sunday like that you can read, you can get things organized, and then you can be sure that if your room is inspected you won’t be embarrassed. You can do your correspondence; you can practice the piano. Of course, it would be nice if you could go out and chat a little bit. However, you cannot expect the patients as long as they’re still alive to be made to sleep early in the morning. It is always better to be a nurse than a patient.
Harry’s angry verse is taking on rather a scary form now; I like his prose better and it does not contain any Napa danger. What is making my heart beat faster is your terrible grammar and the incorrect spelling that you use. I assume that you’re learning English as fast as you’re forgetting German. Your German used to be good, so I’m happy you’re learning English. My sadism is so great that I imagine that I am seeing the faces of Professor Locker and Eva’s German professor as I read your letters.
Eva mentioned a phosphorescent substance that she uses to improve her complexion. Do you still have those damned mixed pickles? [pimples] You could really get rid of these childhood maladies. Hopefully the headaches have disappeared? I deliberately never asked because Dr. Ornstein strictly forbade me to ask: “Eva, how’s your head?” For a while, I really blamed myself for being the source of your headaches, because they say “fear begets fear.” Please do not as you usually do ignore this question, please answer me truthfully.
Harry: tsk tsk, tsk – on the other hand is giving me a headache. In almost every letter I don’t manage to figure out if “Tulli” is an American Indian or “habtschi” in Chinese or a Götz quotation in Japanese. I wanted to ask a few times but then I always forgot. I have decided that it must be American Indian and it seems to be one of the things that impressed you at Lake Tahoe. In any case, I am horrified at the thought that if this continues, I will not understand what my own flesh and blood are writing to me.
Since winter has already arrived (but the weather is very nice), Papa has outfitted me like an Eskimo. In the house, I wear warm pants, but I can’t say that it’s all quiet on the Western Front because Papa has spent the rest of my points on two vests, one of which has arms, and one of which is sleeveless.
Your father just came home and he told me with a big smile, showing me the full shopping bag, that he has spent all of his money on food. He was especially happy that he was able to use all of the week’s bread cards on Knäcke [crispbread]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crispbread You probably want to know what that is? Well, I call them “Aryan matzo”. They taste the same, like nothing at all, but they’re smaller and more burnt. You can eat them for hours without being hungry, but also without getting full. They are great as accompaniment music to Tric-Trac and they make you feel like you are closer to the ruminants. Because of our eastern citizenship, I feel closer to a ship of the desert than to the cows here at home.
That’s all for today and Kisses
HelenHow do you like my new signature? [referring to ink blot]
Helene tries to help Eva come to terms with her split shift on Sundays. We learned about Eva’s Sunday hours in the October 29 and October 30 posts.
Like his mother, Harry has been sprinkling words from a variety of languages in his letters. Helene is trying to make sense of them, but unfortunately doesn’t have access to the internet.
Helene makes light of their meager food and clothing rations while filling today’s letter with puns and word play. For example, she mentions Eva’s “mixed pickles.” The word for “pimple” in German is Pickel. She makes a pun about spelling errors and about west/vest. In the September 6 post, there is an explanation of the “Götz quotation.”