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Today we see two letters written in September 1939 to Helene’s nephew Paul Zerzawy in New York. He arrived in the U.S. in April and is trying to find his feet while also helping his relatives in their efforts to emigrate. It may be that they were sent in the same envelope.
13, September 1939
My dear!
I suppose you have written to me, as I have to you, and that your letter describes the clipper… of August 19. I don’t have anything new to report. Since the war began, I haven’t received any mail from Europe. Please follow my suggestion and send mail about once a week, even if just a card (numbered!). Mail from neutral countries seems to be getting through.
Warmly,
The Cohen Family
Vienna, 9/11/39
Dear Paul,
Please don’t worry about us. We will certainly try to leave somehow, but we don’t have any prospects at the moment. Maybe you can write to the Zentners to get our ship tickets transferred to another line. Here, you see, we can only pay in dollars; since the tickets from the USA are paid for, we cannot complete this transaction. I don’t know which ship line you could consider because there may be changes. At this time, it would be possible to take the Italian line; however, it would have to be paid for in hard currency/foreign money. I hope this can be taken care of soon.
If you write to Robert, tell him not to worry about us.
I’ll write more next time; I’m out of room today.
Try to send us some news the same way.
Warmly,
EvaDear Paul,
Once we did experience history, but it was not that exciting. I hope a direct connection is possible soon.Kisses,
HelenePaulie, look, here I am again today. Don’t worry.
A thousand kisses.
Illegible signature
Each of today’s letters have an element of confusion in them. Paul has been in the U.S. since April and is trying to help bring Helene’s family to join him. The typewritten letter has the #2 at the top, meaning it was the second of Helene’s numbered letters from Vienna to America. It is dated and postmarked September 13, 1939 from Istanbul, Turkey with a return address from Josef de Sévillia who I believe was married to one of Vitali’s sisters. Did Helene post-date the letter, knowing it wouldn’t be sent until several days after she wrote it?
The handwritten letter was confusing because Eva was already adopting the month/date order that we use in the U.S. (month-date-year), rather than the European convention (date-month-year), but used a Roman numeral for the day (XI) which in the letters written in German would indicate the month. So naturally, the letter was originally archived with the date of November 9, 1939. However, that would be impossible because Eva and Harry were in San Francisco by October. In the August 19 post, we learned that they had ship tickets and expected to arrive in New York on September 7. It appears that this letter was sent via Istanbul as well – perhaps in the same envelope as the typewritten letter? They would be following their own advice by sending these letters to Vitali’s Turkish relatives and asking them to forward them to cousin Paul. Mail between Germany (Austria was annexed in 1938) and the U.S. was unreliable at best.
Three people wrote something on the handwritten letter – Eva, her mother Helene, and a third person. At first I thought the last part was a second note from Helene before posting the letter, but the signature looks nothing like hers. Perhaps it’s Paula, the friend who wrote so many letters after the war assuring Helene of Vitali’s survival?
I wonder whether Helene’s sentence about experiencing history alludes to a literary quote. I assume she is talking about the fact that she and Paul had been separated by war before, when he was a soldier in WWI.