Other voices from the past

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As I was getting ready to prepare today’s post, I realized that the letter I had planned to write about wasn’t completely translated. It was one of several that my original translator had trouble reading. I had ascribed the problem to difficult handwriting, but now understand that it was written in the old German script. We will see the letter at a later date.

When I began trying to make sense of my many documents, I contacted the US Holocaust Memorial Museum when I was trying to find contact information for historian Corry Guttstadt because she had done a fellowship there. From that contact, I learned a great deal about my grandmother and my family and I made a new friend. I requested information about my father’s parents and they sent me documents from the International Tracing Service. They had been deported from Frankfurt on September 1, 1942 to Theresienstadt. According to one of the documents, my grandmother Rosa Adler Goldschmidt says she was transported to Maly Trostinec. Although there was no proof of death, the letter said that fewer than 10% of prisoners returned after the war.

My father was born in 1907 in Gelnhausen, a town in Germany not far from Frankfurt am Main. He came to the U.S. in 1934. At that time, his parents were living in Frankfurt. He had a brother who also came to the U.S. and lived in San Francisco for a few years, but I never met him and do not know where or when he died. He never spoke about his family.

In 2007, I began going through the papers my mother had saved. These included: her mother’s letters sent from Istanbul in 1945-1946; the letters Harry sent her when he was a G.I. in 1943-1945; Paul Zerzawy’s photo albums, school records, bank records from 1939, and his death certificate. She also had about 2 dozen letters from my father’s family.

When I first began looking through those papers, I asked for help from a few German speakers. Although they were able to read Helene’s letters, none of them could decipher the letters written by my father’s parents. When Amei Papitto started translating Paul Zerzawy’s letters written in the old German handwriting, I asked her to look at them and she couldn’t read them either. I had resigned myself to never knowing what the letters said.

When I contacted Michael Simonson at the Leo Baeck Institute a few months ago to ask for some advice, I mentioned my father’s letters. He asked me to send a few examples and he would see whether one of the LBI volunteers might be able to read them. Incredibly, he could!

In early August, Michael sent me the translation of the undated letter below. Imagine my delight at hearing my paternal grandmother’s “voice” for the first time. Given my grandparents’ tragic end, I’m glad that they were not silenced forever.

My dear children!

We were very happy with your dear letter, particularly since you sound so satisfied. Have you gotten properly settled in your apartment? Now let me give you the recipe for a potato soup. You start some water boiling, cut small cubes of potatoes, some celery, leeks, carrots, everything cut small, and also some cauliflower, place it in the water and let it cook until it is soft, then put some fat in a little pan, some onions, cut small, brown two spoons of flour in it, stir in a little water until it’s smooth, then pour into the potato soup, bring to a boil and add 1 small sausage per person. Now the recipe for wafer cuts. Mix ¼ pound butter, 30g grated chocolate, 2 whole eggs, 2 heaping spoons of crushed sugar cubes, allow this to dry on a sheet smeared with wafers, allow the mass and the wafers to dry alternately when everything is ready. Finally, cut.

If you would like another recipe, write to me I will gladly send it to you. If you make the potato soup, dear Tane <?> should also eat with you. You must also put 1 or 2 small sausages in it. Aside from that I know of nothing to write for today. Sending warmest greetings and kisses. Your faithful

                                                                     Mother

I was charmed that the first thing I “received” from my grandmother was recipes for my father’s favorite foods! It took me a while to figure out what a “wafer cut” cookie is. I tried reverse translation and came up with “Waffelschnitte”. They are the layered wafer cookies known to us as Neapolitin wafers.

Below is the only family photo I have that I believe shows my father’s family - I assume the baby is my father and the people in the photo are his parents and three of his grandparents.