“The Lion of Bilin,” revisited

In my April 22, 2021 blog post, I included a story my grandmother had written about her hometown of Bilin (Bilina in Czech), which she entitled The Lion of Bilin, after the mountain that towers over the town. In German the mountain was known as the Borschen and in Czech it is the Bořeň. It was affectionately known as the Lion of Bilin, inspired by a drawing Goethe made of the mountain in the early 19th Century.

As I mentioned in my last post, in May of this year, Czech genealogist Julius Müller took my husband and me to visit Bilina. I had written to the information office the previous year about planning to visit, but received no reply. Upon arriving in Bilina, Julius took us to the Bilina Information Center and mentioned that I was looking for information about my great-grandfather Adolf Löwy, the newspaper publisher. The woman at the desk, Lada Hubáčková, remembered my email and said she had replied but her message had been returned as undeliverable. Lada was very helpful, showering us with information, brochures, and postcards of the town.  

My grandmother’s story begins: “Borschen Mountain is located in a valley between the Erz Mountains – the natural border between the Empires of Saxony and Bohemia – and the Bohemian Uplands.  It is 538 meters above sea level.”

I repeatedly have been amazed by my grandmother’s memory – usually I have been able to corroborate something she wrote by researching in newspapers or vital records. Sometimes I have discovered that she was correct and the record was wrong! At the information center, I found this postcard:

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“Aha!,” I thought as I noticed that the postcard said that the mountain is 539 meters high, one meter higher than my grandmother had written. Finally an error - my grandmother’s memory was good but not that good. I mentioned to Lada that my grandmother had recalled learning in school that the mountain was 538 meters high. Lada said that when she was in grade school, she too had learned that it was 538 meters high! Apparently, in recent years the mountain had been measured with modern technology and found to be a meter higher than previously thought.

Yet again, my grandmother’s memory and veracity were flawless!

Julius took us to the cemetery and the spa above the town (a story for another post), where we had a wonderful view of the mountain, which indeed looks a bit like a sleeping lion. I was thrilled to be walking in my grandmother’s footsteps and seeing the places I’d been reading about over the past few years.

My husband and I with the Lion of Bilin in the background.

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In the 1980s, my mother and I went to Kauai and saw Nounou Mountain, which is known as The Sleeping Giant. I wonder whether when we saw it my mother recalled stories her mother had told her of the sleeping lion a century and world away?

My mother mimicking the mountain in Kauai

June 11, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Just when I opened my book to write, everyone came home so I had to stop. No one must know that I know. Gladys told me that Suzanne was in bed with a man and that in the middle of the night he shot her and she died right away. She said the man was not Mr. Leonard. Then she said that it served Suzanne right because no good woman ever sleeps with a man. I said that Grandmother sleeps with Grandfather every single night, and she is a good woman and she is always telling everyone how good she is. Gladys says that is different but I don’t see why? Anyhow Gladys is lying because Suzanne was better than just plain good. She was dear and sweet and pretty and kind and gentle and I told Gladys so and she got mad and she called Suzanne by words that I never heard before and I don’t know how to spell. “Slut” was one of them. I can remember that one because it is short. When I asked her what it meant she said if I ever repeated it that she would wash my mouth out with kitchen soap so it must mean something ugly and I know that “slut” was something that Suzanne wasn’t.

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As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I have not been able to find any information about Suzanne. In my newspaper searches, there were very few mentions of the name, so it apparently was not popular at the time. I wondered whether it was not her given name or perhaps a nickname.

In previous searches when I tried to find mention of her as a dancer, I searched for “dance",” “Scheherazade,” and “ballet.” None of those words yielded success in the San Francisco papers available online through 1912 and 1913. After reading about Suzanne’s death, I looked through a few week’s worth of papers, searching the obituaries and for articles about a woman’s violent death. No reports of anyone being shot, although there were articles about someone named Shirley who had been stabbed to death in Half Moon Bay. Could Suzanne’s given name have been Shirley? After searching further, I discovered that Shirley was the last name of a man who was killed in a fight at a bar.

So Suzanne remains a mystery. Suzanne was one of the few adults Hilda loved and felt accepted by, perhaps the first person she cared about who died when she was old enough to understand the concept.

June 10, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Suzanne is dead. When I came downstairs for breakfast this morning, Grandmother was crying and Aunt Tillie was crying and Grandfather was trying not to cry. I can’t remember which one of them told me that Suzanne had died. Grandfather had a newspaper in his hand but he hid it. That is all that happened. Then they all got dressed and went out. They said they had to go and see Suzanne’s father and mother and I should be good while they were gone. Then Grandmother whispered to Gladys, “Not a word to the child.” The moment they were out of the house I made Gladys tell me because I knew that Suzanne didn’t just die.

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What a shock! Although I have found ample evidence of most of the events and activities in Hilda’s diary, I have been unable to find anything about a woman named Suzanne. Nor of the ballet “Scheherazade” in which she was an understudy. I searched through local contemporary newspapers and could not find the newspaper article her grandfather seemed to be hiding.

November 22

Link to Family Tree to understand family relationships.

Today we have a letter to Helene’s daughter Eva from Jon Eidelson, the husband of a distant relative on my grandmother’s side.

November 22, 1996

Dear Eva,

As you know, I have been helping my father-in-law, David Levy, piece together a family tree for his mother’s side of the family. David’s mother was Elsie, the daughter of Bernhard Fulda (from Hitdorf, Germany) and Bertha Levy (from Litomerice in Bohemia, now the northern part of Czechoslovakia).

I am including a copy of the portion of this family tree that relates to your family. Hopefully you will find it interesting. I would greatly appreciate any corrections, additional information, or comments, and any photocopies of old documents you may have, and have included an envelope for your reply.

Thanks again for all your help.

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Fall 1996 was the early days of email and Google did not yet exist. Research was done in libraries and by traveling to small towns in Europe to look for vital records.

In later correspondence, Jon asked some specific questions, most of which my mother couldn’t answer. I can answer many of the questions now, 25 years later, and the names and locations mean something. For example, in the November 18th post, Paul Zerzawy’s first postcard as a soldier was sent from Litomerice. 

After finding Harry’s papers, I contacted the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society and joined JewishGen, an invaluable online resource. One of the first things I looked for on JewishGen was information on the Zerzawy family. By that time, I had found the Zerzawy family tree dating back to 1740 and the World War I letters from the Zerzawy brothers. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I didn’t think this branch of the family was important to the family story I wanted to tell, so I was hoping to find Zerzawy descendants who would find these papers interesting and useful. On JewishGen, I only found one link, and it was to the family tree made by Jon! I do not know whether there are descendants left from that family

We learned about both family trees in the February 13th post. Helene wrote about “Uncle Fulda” in a few letters although I haven’t deciphered the exact connection. As Helene and Vitali were trying to leave Vienna, she wrote to her children asking them to only ask him for financial assistance if it became absolutely necessary. I believe this is a photo of Erwin or his father Bernhard Fulda and Helene during a visit to Vienna in 1929:

This letter highlights a recurring challenge when doing genealogical research – the repetition of names, both first and last. In today’s letter, Jon talks about his father-in-law David Levy, which would lead one to believe that David was a blood relative of my grandmother Helene, whose maiden name was Löwy, which relatives changed to Levy when they came to the United States. However, Jon explains that David was related to the family on his mother’s side – David’s mother’s maiden name was Fulda; his grandmother’s maiden name was Levy.

Earlier this year, I hired a genealogist in Prague to find information about my grandmother’s parents and grandparents. According to his research, Helene’s father Adolf’s parents were both born with the surname Löwy, and in fact, both his maternal and paternal grandfathers were named Jakob Löwy!

In addition to answering Jon’s questions, my mother shared memories of the stories Helene had told her as a child. For example, she explained that her grandfather Adolf had tutored Goethe’s girlfriend. However, as we saw in the September 4th post, according to Helene, the possible Goethe connection was with Adolf’s mother-in-law who had been Ulrike von Levetzow’s milliner. As people steeped in genealogy advise, it’s always important to validate even information that seems incontrovertible by finding for additional references and evidence. As I’ve gone through my grandmother’s papers over the past few years, I have come to trust what she says and recalls. I can almost always find a newspaper article or other reference that corroborates the story she tells.

November 21

Link to Family Tree to understand family relationships.

As we’ve seen in earlier posts, the Joint Distribution Committee (also known as the Joint) helped many of the world’s Jews during and after World War II. The Joint helped wherever they saw a need, including those who might have fallen through the cracks. One group was prisoners with Turkish citizenship who were part of a March 1945 prisoner trade. They had been put on a ship to Istanbul to be repatriated by Turkey. Unfortunately, Turkey did not recognize the citizenship of most of these refugees, who ended up imprisoned again in Istanbul. Penniless, homeless, and not having had contact with the outside world for years, these poor people needed help of all kinds to find somewhere that would welcome (or at least accept) their presence. My grandmother Helene, as the wife of a Turkish citizen, was one of these prisoners. We’ve read about her experience in earlier posts, as well about my experience researching the online JDC Archives to find documents related to her experience.

Upon the prisoners’ arrival in Istanbul, representatives of the Joint were concerned about the costs related to the 148 prisoners who arrived on the SS Drottningholm (see the April 20th post). Today we see excerpts from several memos from the JDC Archives from November 1945 regarding the remaining prisoners, including Helene.

From a November 9, 1945 letter from E.L. Packer, the First Secretary of the American Embassy in Ankara to Arthur Fishzohn of the Joint in Istanbul:

Referring to my letter of September 26, 1945, I take pleasure in informing you that Mr. Celal Osman Abacioglù, Director General of the Department of Consular Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, telephoned me today to inform me that orders had been issued to Istanbul to permit the transfer of the Jewish refugees from the S.S. Drottningholm, who are now living at Moda, to Burgos, as requested.

We saw excerpts from the earlier mentioned letter in the September 25th post, where we learned of efforts to cut costs by finding a place to relocate the remaining 49 refugees.

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From a November 13, 1945 letter from Charles Passman from the Joint in Jerusalem to Arthur Fishzohn:

…This has been an exceptionally costly affair, but it cannot be helped. I only hope that this matter will be liquidated soon, so that it should not continue and involve us in additional expenses….

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From a November 20, 1945 letter from Arthur Fishzohn to G. Ladame, Assistant Delegate of ICRC in Turkey in Ankara with the Subject line: “Re SS ‘Drottningholm’ refugees”:

…I should like to correct the statement in my letter… of November 7th, wherein I advised that the number of internees had been reduced to 46. Not three but only one person… was released,… the figure of 49 must still be dealt with.

On November 13th we obtained the release of… who left Istanbul … for Palestine on the same day.

1.     The 48 individuals whose cases must still be disposed of:
[lists by destination country, the majority with visas to return to their home country]…

 e) The remaining 2 individuals desire to proceed to the countries listed opposite their names….
COHEN, Helena UNITED STATES (for which country she has already obtained a visa)

In the April 19th post, we saw transit visa stamps for several countries on Helene’s Affidavit in Lieu of Passport which was issued on November 28, 1945.

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From a November 21, 1945 letter from Arthur Fishzohn to Charles Passman, with the subject line “Re SS ‘Drottningholm’ refugees”:

Mr. G. Ladame (assistant to Gilbert Simond of the International Red Cross, Ankara) who has just rerutnred from Geneva, has asked me for information on the “Drottningholm” group still interned here. He states that Geneva is interested in this situation.

Mr. Simond’s office has been kept informed by me, from time to time, on the status of the “Drottningholm” affair….

I am glad to be able to inform you that the SS “Tan” left this afternoon for Marseilles with the 15 “Drottningholm” Belgians aboard. This will reduce the total number of “Drottningholm” internees to 33. Transportation for that group plus an additional 14 French repatriates, who have been on our relief rolls here, making a total of 29 persons, is to be paid for by Hicem Istanbul….The money…was advanced by me, and …the Hicem office here will arrange for the reimbursement of this amount to us here, as soon as his office in Paris cables it to him.

I am glad to report that, on November 17th, we transferred the remaining internees to a house in Fener-Bagçe, near Istanbul….

I have not yet received the $10,000 for which we have applied to New York in connection with these “Drottningholm: refugees. I guess, however, the money will be reaching me here very soon….

Copies of this letter and also of letter to Mr. Ladame are being forwarded to Paris and New York.

According to the Shoah Resource Center, HICEM was a merger of three Jewish migration associations.

In addition to providing context for my grandmother’s Istanbul letters, the JDC documents related to this group of prisoners give us an understanding of the bureaucratic hurdles and delicate diplomacy required to help those who arrived without any resources or support. We see that it required the assistance of and intervention by many agencies from across the globe.

November 17

Link to Family Tree to understand family relationships.

Today we have a letter from Helene’s nephew Robert Zerzawy. Although his brother Paul Zerzawy emigrated to the U.S., Robert never made it further than England. As far as I know, he only made one visit to California, which he mentions in this letter. He is writing to his young cousin Harry.

17 November 1947.        

Dear Harry,

I have exactly five minutes to write you while having my “elevenses” - a warm cup of coffee in this beastly weather is a real comfort. I think longingly back to the sunny day in Berkeley when you showed me round there though the temperature was not quite as high as in Boulder City where we had 105 or 110°. But you are not impressed by that. You had your share in the South Sea. That’s not exactly what you wanted to hear from me but give me time, Harry. Since I have been back, I never found the right mood for writing a personable letter. As far as reason goes with me, I am afraid I move ... in a circle, too much time and too much loneliness for introspective thoughts, and that’s not good for the mind - for today let me just tell you how much I enjoyed having met you after the 10 fateful years, or how long it is that we met in Vienna. I regret only we had so little time to talk to each other. Still, I hope it wasn’t the last time.

I wish you every success in your plans and good luck for your future. If you have the time and feel like, please write me about your doings and your ideas. ...always be pleasant to hear from you.

Cheers and kindest regards,
Yours
Robert

[2 stickers on the letter: Please give this To Harry]

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On Ancestry.com, I found the ship manifest showing Robert sailing from Manchester, England on August 22, 1947 on the Manchester Progress bound for Montreal, listing the ultimate destination of visiting his brother Paul in San Francisco. At the time, he was living in Bridport, on the southern coast of England.  

In November 1947, Robert was 48 years old and Harry was half his age. Although they were related closely by blood, they had little common history. According to Robert, the last time they had seen each other was 10 years earlier, when Harry would have been 14. We saw in earlier posts that the intent had been for Robert to join his brother Paul and young cousins Eva and Harry in San Francisco, but somehow it never happened. Robert settled in England and became a citizen there.

Robert’s letters always make me feel melancholy and imagine what might have been. He was an artist with a sensitive temperament, not well-suited to the serious and dangerous times he lived in.

Robert’s mother died before he was 5 years old, his step-mother when he was 10. He was a young teenager when World War I broke out and his father and two older brothers Paul and Erich joined the army, leaving he and his two sisters Klara and Käthl at home, being cared for by their grandmother. Klara died in 1916. Robert was not drafted, although there is talk in some letters of the likelihood of him becoming a soldier. By 1918, he was 19 years old, his brother Erich never returned from the Siberian POW camp, his sister Käthl had died, the family household had been disbanded, and his brother Paul returned as a young adult who had had a front-row seat to the war. The four-year age difference probably felt like a much wider gap. It appears that Paul was well-suited to university and legal studies. Robert tried to follow in his footsteps, with a lesser degree of success.

I believe that the photo below was taken in Berkeley on the visit Robert mentions in the letter:  

August 23

Finding my way to Vitali

The past few years of delving into my family history have been a fascinating journey. I’ve learned a huge amount, done a lot of research, discovered a new and unusual avocation, and met and reconnected with a lot of wonderful people along the way. This summer has been no exception. I continue to find new documents and articles that paint a fuller picture of my family. For most of the year, I have concentrated on my grandmother. Over the past month, I’ve found myself focusing more on my grandfather.

One of the most unexpected discoveries has been that my quest to learn more about my family is somehow inextricably linked to my learning about and doing hand analysis. I make the most progress when I am involved in both. Often my grandmother’s papers lead me to my grandfather, while my grandfather’s metaphysical pursuits lead me back to my grandmother. Apparently, neither of my grandparents wants to be ignored.

In seeking to learn more about my grandfather, a few years ago I decided to look into hand reading, one of the only things I knew about him. I found my way to Richard Unger and hand analysis through a newspaper article about Josef Ranald which my grandmother had saved – see the January 19 post. During my training with Richard, I had to read at least 100 hands. A few years ago, a friend brought together a few of her friends to get me more hands to read. It turned out that one of the people there was a relative on my grandmother’s side whom I had never met!

During the pandemic, I’ve read a few hands and continued learning about hand analysis by attending Zoom classes with Richard and other much more experienced hand analysts who had been trained by Richard or his graduates over the past 30 years. Earlier this summer, I had a conversation with one of Richard’s former (and current) students, Jena Griffiths, a master hand analyst in Zurich. When I mentioned my theory that Vitali may have known Josef Ranald, she suggested I research Ranald to see if I could find anything. There wasn’t much to find. But my search led me to a fascinating article by Ranald’s granddaughter, Caroline Ranald Curvan. I emailed Caroline and we had a marvelous conversation, granddaughter to granddaughter.

Caroline mentioned that several years earlier she had been approached by Alexandra Nagel, a doctoral student in the Netherlands who was writing her doctoral dissertation on German psychochirologist Julius Spier. Per Alexandra, a psychochirologist was “a Jungian type of hand-analyst. He lived in Amsterdam from the beginning of 1939 until his death in September 1942, having legally fled his home country.” Alexandra and I had a great conversation and have emailed back and forth quite a bit. Early on, she sent me a Viennese newspaper article that mentioned Vitali, in a non-metaphysical context – in 1934 he gave a lecture (in Italian!) at a social club on the subject of “old and new Turkey”:

From Neues Wiener Journal 25 April 1934, p10

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Earlier this month, I attended the 2021 IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy. This is the second conference I’ve attended, both of them virtual. The amount of information and number of people involved in genealogy is amazing. I learned a great deal and found new resources. At one session we were encouraged to do newspaper research through the Austrian national library. I have translations of newspaper articles and have wondered how to find them. I have no citation for some translated articles and sometimes the articles do not refer to my grandfather by name – calling him Mr. C or something else impossible to search for. Inspired by Alexandra’s success, I decided to brave the archive myself, despite my lack of German. Incredibly I actually found a few things! I realized that it would be helpful to search using a relatively unusual word so I looked for the German word for mandrake root – “Alraunen”. In addition to a number of unrelated articles, I found one that is similar to a photo I have in the archive — I didn’t realize it had been taken for use in a publication. As often happen when I do not have a translation or have inadequate information, I create a story for myself about the item. In this case I decided Vitali had the photo taken in 1938 or 1939 to be included in his “portfolio” for coming to the U.S., showing that he had a successful business which could be transferred to San Francisco. Instead, this photo was taken in 1934 for an article about mandrake root!

Photo on left from my archive; photo on right from Wiener Magazin 8 November 1934 p42

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I also found an advertisement for mandrake root sales at my grandparents’ shop:

From Mocca 7 January 1934 p 86

Translation from Google Translate: “Mandrakes: A meaningful Christmas and New Years present. Real mandrakes are sold from a well-known collection. Get yourself a lucky mandrake now. Himmelpfortgasse 6 and Stubenring 2” — the latter is the address of my grandparents’ stationery store.

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At the IAJGS conference, I attended a workshop given by Yad Vashem, the keepers of the Arolsen Archives in Germany. We saw Helene’s requests for information about Vitali’s whereabouts, including one made to the International Tracing Service ITS and to Arolsen, Germany in 1955 in the June 21 and August 21 posts. In the week before the workshop, I looked at the Arolsen archives and found some documents related to Vitali. After the workshop, I searched again and found even more. These will be the subject of tomorrow’s post.

Warning: tomorrow’s post may be difficult to read.

August 10

Today we have a postcard from soldier Paul Zerzawy working in the Statistical Bureau to the his family in Brüx, Bohemia.

Belgrad 10 VIII 1916

I just received a postcard which I sent on the 27th to Erich, with the note “missing”. Please notify me immediately with any news, possibly by telegram. Please direct yourselves with a postcard to the information department of the Red Cross in Prague and Brünn, as well as to the Reserve Batallion L14. Evidence probably also Brünn. I will write as well.

Paul

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We saw the only letter I have from Erich Zerzawy that was written while he was a soldier on active duty in the July 14 post – in that letter he mentioned that he was “in the presence of the enemy” and presumably he was captured soon thereafter. In today’s letter, Paul is anxious that his letter from late July was returned because Erich was “missing”.

The rest of Erich’s correspondence in my archive was sent from a POW camp in Eastern Siberia. We saw the first of those letters in the January 8 post.  I have 24 cards written in 1917 and two in 1918.

Paul tried to discover what had happened to his brother. In the January 12 post, we saw an International Red Cross information card from 1919 indicating that Erich escaped from the camp in July 1918. Like so many things in the archive, we see history repeating itself during and after the two wars, including searching for missing loved ones, longing for letters, economic hardship, and reflections on the life of a soldier.

July 23

Link to Family Tree to understand family relationships.

Today we have another letter from Helene in Vienna to her children in San Francisco. When the children came to the U.S., they were split up and sent to live with different relatives and attend different high schools.

Vienna, 23 July 1940

My dear children. It’s not easy for me to write to you today because I am very worried about Harry because I haven’t heard a single line from him. On the other hand, I don’t want to worry you or fill your heads with worry if it’s just a matter of a disreputable postal service, so you must keep in mind that I am worried and try to put yourself in my shoes, even if just for a few moments. Time is really dragging from one postal delivery to the next and the disappointed hopes when no letter arrives cause an emptiness which is quite agonizing. My attempts to form a halfway reasonable thought are not going to be as successful today. However, just to reassure you about how we are doing, I do assure you that we are healthy and everything is going fine except for the agonizing worry which does disappear when the writing from little Harry will appear, which we so desire. In lighter moments I say to myself that Eva’s dear little letter of the 3rd of this month is so filled with happiness that the thought that there could be anything wrong with Harry is absurd. But then come the evil thoughts like demons and they whisper to me: “How does Eva know how Harry is doing because they’re not together anymore?” I feel sorry for Papa who has to put up with my presence on such days. He really earns my admiration.

There’s a little showpiece from our wax figure shop: an old man, forgive the expression, but the man was old, even for an old man - he was closer to 100 than 90. He came into the store, trembling and halting, asked for a postcard of Egypt. While Papa was sticking Ramses into an envelope, the old guy said “One more time I’d like to climb up on a pyramid and spit on the entire world.” When Papa asked him “why do you want to go to so much trouble?”, he put his treasure in his pocket, coughing, he said his goodbyes and he left the store, and in his mind he was probably already back in the land of the Pharaohs. There’s got to be some sort of philosophy of life implied in this wish of the old man - to spit on the entire world, well, sure that’s a very freeing thought! I really can’t do anything more today. Maybe there’s mail from you on Friday and I will make everything right again. Please write in detail and soon and please say hello to all of our dear ones most sincerely.

In love,
Your Mutti
Helen

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There is a handwritten note at the top that numbers this Letter as #42 since 2 letters were sent that were numbered #39. However, I do not have a #39 in my archive. We saw 2 letters with Clipper No. 40 in the post on July 19 — perhaps that is what Helene meant. Or perhaps letters #39 never made it to their destination.

As with the July 19 post, we have a window into the non-metaphysical world of Helene and Vitali’s stationery shop Libansky & Co, eking out a living selling pencil sharpeners and picture postcards.

Harry was a bit of a hoarder, but only in one room and more I think from a sense that everything could come in handy and that one never knows when you’ll need to escape and will have no resources. Not a surprising attitude, given his life experience. My mother Eva was similar. Neither Eva nor Harry were very good at organizing their possessions with any rhyme or reason. They tossed odd assortments of things into boxes and put them “away”, rarely being able to find something that had been put into a safe place. The boxes might have letters, photos, paper clips, pens, pads of paper, knick knacks, etc. Like a little box of treasure. Which my cousins and I thought of as junk.

In the last few years of Harry’s life, I helped him organize his things. I didn’t have a lot of hope about making progress, but it was a wonderful excuse to spend time with him. I made him promise not to throw out important papers or photos, and he kept that promise, as evidenced by this blog. He held out the prospect of our going through the photos one day when we were “done,” something I realized we’d never be.

On one of our sorting sessions, we came across the small leather portfolio in the photo below. It was in great condition and I didn’t think much of it. Something he’d hung onto but seemed ready to let go of. I was eager to add it to the pile to go to the thrift shop. However, when I opened the portfolio, there was the label, which meant nothing to me. Harry off-handedly mentioned that the label was from his parents’ shop in Vienna. I had never known the name and suddenly this worthless item was priceless to me. I took it home to keep it safe, so it wouldn’t be thrown back into a box of stuff, perhaps never to be unearthed again.

Below is a page of stationery stores from the 1925 phone book from Vienna. At the bottom of the left column, my grandmother’s name is listed as the proprietor of Libansky & Co. (highlighted in green)

July 10

Link to Family Tree to understand family relationships.

As we learned earlier in the year, Helene’s travails were not over upon her release from Ravensbrück. She boarded the Drottingholm in Goteberg in March 1945 and arrived in Istanbul in April. In the April 16 post, we learned of the hurdles that the released prisoners faced upon arrival in Istanbul. In the April 20 post we saw that although the passengers were allowed to leave the ship, 112 of them became prisoners again, being interned in hotels in Istanbul. Today, from excerpts from documents found in the JDC archives, we see what little progress had been made in the previous three months for many of these people, including my grandmother.

From a July 16th, 1945 memo from The American Joint Distribution Committee c/o American Consulate General in Istanbul:

Subject: Drottningholm Jewish Refugees not yet permitted formally to enter Turkey

The Drottningholm, Swedish diplomatic liner, arrived in Istanbul on April 10th, 1945, from Goteborg, Sweden. The sip carried several hundred Turkish repatriates who were to be exchanged for German nationals, then interned in Turkey.

One hundred thirty seven of those people were Jewish, every one of whom had been taken directly from concentration camps such as Buchenwald, Ravensbruck, Bergen Belsen, Auschwitz, etc. They were brought to Goteberg and there placed on board the Drottningholm. With few exceptions, they carried no documents establishing their citizenship or even identity, since such documents had, in most instances, been confiscated by Nazi camp commandants or other Nazi authorities.

Twenty one Jewish passengers were permitted to debark on the day the ship docked. The Turkish nationality status of the remaining 116 individuals was questioned by the Turkish authorities and so this entire group was interned in small hotels, under police surveillance, pending investigation and decision by the authorities with regard to their nationality.

Costs for their maintenance were and still are being paid for by the American Joint Distribution Committee.

On June 21st, after many weeks of investigation, 46 individuals were released (presumably on the theory that they were Turkish nationals)….

Today (July 10th) six more individuals …were sent to Palestine….and need no longer be considered part of this list.

Accordingly, there are, at this writing, 63 persons still interned in the hotels and there is no indication at this time what the Turkish authorities propose doing with this remaining group.

When the Drottiningholm reached Istanbul, everyone of these refugees… told the local police who were investigating their cases that they were Turkish nationals. In many cases this was so. In other instances they did not honestly know whether their nationality status was Turkish or not. However, in practically all cases they have been Turkish by birth or through marriage, although, as frequently happened, they failed to renew their Turkish citizenship. All of these people have lived for many years – in some cases all of their lives – in Belgium, Holland, Italy, Austria, France, Germany and Czechoslovakia. They did not ask to be brought to Istanbul and it is therefore the responsibility of the Turkish Government to either return them to the countries where they last resided, or else accept them in Turkey

• as Turkish repatriates or
• as refugees with the right to remain here until arrangements can be completed for their departure to other countries.

The Turkish authorities have taken the position that the entire group of Jewish passengers were placed on board the Drottningholm without the knowledge of the Turkish Government. This can hardly be possible because in an exchange of nationals especially during war time clearance of passenger lists must have been made by the Turkish Government.

Certainly, there is no reason why the refugees still remaining here should be penalized by continued internment because of an error or misunderstanding on the part of the Turkish authorities, over which situation, these refugees had no control.

This group has already been interned in hotels without freedom of movement for three and a half months. As previously pointed out, everyone was in a concentration camp – some for several years. It is injust and inhuman to continue to confine them especially now with the war in Europe over.

It is respectfully urged that steps be taken for these people by our State Department, War Refugee Board and other interested agencies looking toward:

• their immediate release from internment
• acceleration of decision of the Turkish Government concerting their Turkish nationality status.
• granting permission to those not recognized as Turkish nationals to remain in Turkey as refugees on their own recognizance for a reasonable period (perhaps 6 months or a year).
• whenever possible to return them to their countries of previous residence.

Arthur Fishsohn,
For American Joint Distribution Committee,
Istanbul

---

Helene Cohen was listed on the July 14, 1945 document entitled “Drottingholm Jewish Refugees not yet permitted to formally enter Turkey” that accompanied the above memo.  For each prisoner, the document lists name, age, date and place of birth, pre-war residence, evidence of Turkish citizenship and its loss, desired destination, and remarks including relatives to contact of the 68 remaining prisoners. Here is a screenshot for the entry for Helene:

 COHEN, Helene; 50; Nov 23, 1886; Bilin (Czechoslovakia) (Austrian in 1886); Austria, Vienna; Turk citizen by marriage to Haim COHEN, who remained T. citizen till 1943, when he was interned in Buchenwald; America United States; Her daughter, Mrs. Eva GOLDSTEIN, 2319-21st Ave. San Francisco – United States citizen. Has also a son – Harry SOWELL - in U.S. as U.S. citizen

As with the newspaper article we saw yesterday, the information is not entirely correct – the last names for both of Helene’s children, Eva’s address. The list includes the different “locations” of Bilin during Helene’s lifetime.

July 9

Link to Family Tree to understand family relationships.

 Six-Year War Silence Broken

A message of love from Helen Kohan in Stockholm yesterday to her son and daughter, Harry and Eva Lowell of San Francisco, brought the first news of the whereabouts of their Viennese mother since the beginning of the European war in 1939.

The word, received by the United Press here, was sent in care of Julius Zentner, Cathedral Apartments, San Francisco, who forwarded the greeting to Eva Lowell, 2379 27th-av, and Harry Lowell, now serving with the U.S. Army in New Guinea.

Mrs. Kohan’s son and daughter have been living in San Francisco since 1939 when they came to this country with Mr. and Mrs. Zentner. Since then both have become citizens of this country and plan to remain.

Miss Lowell recently was graduated from nurses training at Mt. Zion Hospital here and her brother, a corporal in the Army, has been overseas for a year and a half.

Since the children left their mother in Vienna in 1939 they have had no word of her whereabouts. One message delivered through the Red Cross about a year ago told that Mrs. Kohan was well, but yesterday’s message was the first to let them know their mother was in a neutral country.

---

I found several newspaper articles in my grandmother’s, mother’s and Harry’s binders, boxes, and envelopes of papers. Fortunately, old editions of the San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner are online and easily searchable through the public library. In moments, I found dates for the article on hand analyst Josef Ranald and on my grandmother’s win of the Examiner’s social security game.

A citation for today’s article has continued to elude.  One problem is that it took me a while to narrow the possible dates for the article and trust my instincts. There are a lot of clues in the article, but some of them lead to incorrect dates. At first, I thought my search window would need to be over the course of a more than a year. At this point, I believe the article must have appeared between March and June of 1945 – March as the earliest when the Swedish ship Drottningholm set sail, and June when she would have been in Istanbul for two months and at least some mail would have reached her children. Helene mentions in at least one letter of talking to reporters.

One problem with getting the facts right was that Helene would have told the Red Cross what little she knew or remembered from before she was sent to Ravensbrück in 1943. She knew her daughter’s last name was Lowell and that she had begun attending nursing school. The confusion of dates and facts in such a brief article does give me pause as I read anything published – it’s so difficult to know what is the truth, especially if the sources aren’t as reliable as one might wish.

Possible clues to determine the date of the article:

• 6 year silence – 1939 to 1945 works (of course they received more than 100 letters between 1939-1941 so it wasn’t complete silence at the beginning)

• Message of love from Stockholm – Helene took the Swedish ship Drottningholm to Istanbul.

• Eva Lowell – before January 1945, then Goldsmith

• Harry joined the army in 1943, so this is about right

• Eva’s address – same as in the Power Of Attorney for Harry naming Eva Goldsmith

• Eva became a citizen in January 1945 just before getting married

• Eva’s “recent” graduation was 1943

• Red Cross message – I have Red Cross letters from Vitali from Vienna from 1942 and 1943, far more than a year earlier. Perhaps there were letters sent from Ravensbrück or Buchenwald that I haven’t seen.

• In a neutral country – must be Sweden so it couldn’t have been before spring of 1945

Although I narrowed down the dates, I couldn’t figure out which newspaper published it. I assume it would have been a local San Francisco paper. My online search of the San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner yielded nothing. Last year I sent an email to the now-retired librarian of the San Francisco Chronicle who said he was sure it wasn’t from his paper. Recently, when the San Francisco Public Library reopened after more than a year, I asked for help from a librarian in the San Francisco History Center at the main library. He replied that the article looked like the typeface from the Call-Bulletin which is on microfilm at the library. I spent several bleary-eyed hours poring over microfilm from March through June 1945 with no luck, although the librarian was correct – the layout of the article looks the same as the Call-Bulletin. I probably need to look again, since I believe I was looking in the right window of time.

June 9

In Helene’s papers, I found a few letters from people unrelated to my family. It is fascinating to hear different voices and experiences of the war and its aftermath. So many lives and families destroyed, no one left unchanged or unaffected. Yet, people are resilient and, happily, despite her physical problems, Marga was able to take joy in her husband and family. In just a few pages, we get a sense of a stranger’s life and family over 20 years, from pre-war Prague to post-war Sweden and Switzerland.

Hotel Wüscherhof [?]                                     Zurich 7/6/59
Seehofstrasse 15

My dear good Helene,

Now finally I want to answer your letters in detail as long as my hands don’t go on strike. You cannot imagine how much I am troubled by pain in my hands, arms, shoulders, and now also it’s starting in my feet. For the last 2-1/2 years I have been keeping myself mobile by taking cortisone preparations which of course have terrible side effects. For example, they seem to cause water retention and that’s why I’ve gotten so fat. I am sending you a picture of all of us. It was taken in April on my 60th birthday. You probably hardly recognize me? Then I will introduce you to my husband. You recognize Inge I imagine and the girl is my granddaughter Sandra, a real little Swedish girl. We spent my birthday in Bad Homburg, where I was taking some treatments and Inge and the child came from Stockholm.

Now let’s get to you dear Helene. Life was so full of excitement for you and I can appreciate what it meant for you to be separated from your husband and children. You were always a real delight for your family. I hope you are enjoying your children and that they are making it up to you in your older days and helping to make life easier for you. As I can remember, they were both very good, brave children. It is so sad that Vitali probably did not get to experience the end. His children would have been a great pleasure for him as well.

But everything is kismet and we must bear our crosses. Now you want to know how it’s been with me. When I lived in Prague (and Inge was already in Sweden), I could not leave my mother, and this Nazi gang picked me up there and stuck me head over heels into the K.Z. [abbreviation for Konzentrationslager – concentration camp] Thereseinstadt. I got a telegram in Prague which told me that I had gotten my Swedish citizenship back, and then they picked me up there the same day. I was there for 2-1/2 years and all the intervention from the Swedish government didn’t help, only that they did not send me to be gassed. After the end of the war, I came out of there and got my Swedish passport from the consulate in Prague right away and then traveled all the way across Europe in various types of transportation: going from Prague - Nuremberg - Bamburg - Belgium - Holland, and then back to Germany - Hamburg - Copenhagen and finally after five weeks — I was in animal cars, fish cars, bus, and even a ferry where I landed in Malmö [in southern Sweden]. In the K.Z., I of course picked up my illness. You can imagine the Germans considered my illness to be 100% caused by persecution and they are paying me a large pension. You can fathom how I am doing. Often, especially when the weather changes, I can’t even hold a spoon. My husband has to help me get dressed and undressed since I can’t get my arms to go back. But now I’ll report further. I was in Sweden for 5 months, then I had to go back to Prague to take care of some things. Then, after I came back after a year, Inge came and she was not married yet, but I took care of her household for her. She was working in the state theater in Malmö, but then she married the theater boss. I then simply went to work in a factory and then I managed to work myself up to a more important position in 4-1/2 years and then I met my current husband at a dinner where I and my boss had been invited. We met on Easter Saturday and on Easter Sunday he came with flowers and proposed to me. I told him definitely not, but you know how people are - they are inconsistent - and we got married that same year in August 1951.

My husband was an old bachelor but I must tell you Helene, there is no better man in the world and I really won the lottery with him. He spoils me, he’s true to me and he’s a great support to me. We are moving on the 16th of this month into our new house, the address which I will enclose for you. We want to get out of the big city and all the noise and we want some peace and quiet. It is a charming house, 1000 square meter garden, and we have a view fields and meadows and forest. It’s a mile and a quarter from Zurich and about half and hour from Bern. Helene, I don’t know your financial situation, but if you can afford a trip to Switzerland, you are most warmly welcome to stay with us to relax. Our house has 5-1/2 rooms and plenty of room for you.

You probably heard from Fredy that my mother died in the concentration camp.

Inge is fine, her child is already 11 years old. Inge has her own theater production. She is going on tour throughout Sweden and she’s directing. She’s very industrious with all this. She is still taking care of the house. My son-in-law is director in Stoikh [?], and he’s the only goy who is successfully directing by Habima [perhaps the national theater of Israel]

Now Helene I’ve got to go. My hands are telling me that it’s time to end the letter.

Please don’t be mad at me because I was silent for so long. I have made up for it today, haven’t I? Didn’t you write an interesting book? I heard about it from Fredy. Do you have it available to buy? Please dearest Helene, write soon and give my best greetings to your children, and greetings and kisses from everyone here.

From your old Marga

Please send me a picture of the children.

I would be so happy to see you again. Greetings also from my husband.

---

A Little bit of sleuthing — a lot of information!

In preparing this post, I decided to see what I could learn about Swedish theater and perhaps find something about Marga’s daughter. Marga gave a lot of clues in her letter. I looked up the theater in Malmö. At first I thought Inga might have been married to Ingmar Bergman, since he ran the theater in the 1950s, but that would have been too late for her to have an 11-year old child. On a site about Bergman’s work at Malmö,  I found an article that talked about the different people who preceded him. It mentioned Sandro Malmquist. The Wikipedia page for him lists Inge Waern as his second wife. His page confirms that he directed for Habima. Inge’s Wikipedia page tells us that her mother was Margarethe Waern, née Schlesinger. According to the letter, Inge’s daughter was named Sandra, presumably in honor of her father.

At some point when I have a few extra hours, I’ll see if I can find out more about Marga and how my grandmother knew her.

May 1

Today’s document was found in the JDC Archives item ID 867174.

Soon after I contacted historian Corry Guttstadt, she sent me a copy of the document we see today. It is painful and heartbreaking, but so important. If you click on the JDC link above, you’ll see that at the bottom of the page it says “more.” Unfortunately, whatever more there was is not in the digital file. I’ve spent many hours over the past year combing through the JDC Archives, and could not find a second page. When I asked JDC about it, they said we’d have to wait until after Covid as the originals files would need to be checked and were not open at this time.

Helene gave the following “story” to an unknown interviewer.

ISTANBUL (MODA-PALAS) May 1, 1945

Story of Mrs. Helena Cohen of Vienna, who says she is a Turkish citizen:

“My husband and I were taken from Vienna in October 1943. The Germans separated us. They told us we would be together but it wasn’t true. That was the first lie. They brought me to the capital of Moravia and I stayed there a fortnight. I told them I was a Turkish citizen but that made no difference. They said “You are living in Vienna and a Jew is a Jew.” There was an epidemic in the camp at Brno. The group of women there included nine Slovene partisans, young girls from 18 to 25. In November I came to Ravensbruck. 

Ravensbruck is a little town surrounded by a high wall - with electric wires. We arrived in a bus and all our clothes were taken off. We were given a very thin jacket and trousers, stockings, and boots of wood. That was all. Then we came into a block-dwelling. You must think of a hut in the mountains for 250 people. But living there were 1200 to 1600. Every block had four rooms, two for sleeping and two so-called dining rooms. Beds were in layers of three. Two or three persons in a bed.

We were first called at 3 in the morning by a siren and had to stand from 5:30 to 7 for counting, outside the block. In the afternoon we had to stand again but not so long, only for work assignment…a half hour maybe. This third call was after 5pm to 8m, 9, or 10 o’clock for counting. This third call was for the first year. The second year in Ravensbruck we stood only twice.  

There were about 30,000 women in Ravensbruck (between Berlin and Stottin). All things were built by women. When we came the women over 50 were knitting. Making stockings. Very hard work. Young people were in the factories making parts for ammunition. Also trade goods for Berlin. And a factory for furs. Prisoners had furs when they came. They were taken and were prepared for the military. Not all the furs though. Some were for trade. The SS women were overseers. They were terrible —- beasts. Sadists. Took pleasure in torturing the prisoners. For a trifle a person was sent t the strafe block for a beating, entirely separated from the others. No one could go in there. Bad food - dreadful treatment - blows - all underfed. I lost in three months 25 kilos, about 50 pounds. I weighted 75 kilos when I came there.

You were considered ill only if you have over 40 degrees (104). There was one physician in the hospital (SS man) and a great many women physicians who were also prisoners. A “Schwester” in charge decided whether a patient would have a remedy or not, not a physician. There were only three remedies - aspirin, urotropine and carbon for dysentary. Operations were performed without narcotics, sometimes a local anesthetic. Trials were made on sound people. We named them “rabbits”. There was typhoid all the time in the camp. Scarlet fever, too. But mostly typhoid.

Nourishment consisted of in the morning a cup of so-called coffee - brown water without sugar. Excuse me, I don’t say it couramment [French for “fluently”]. I am a little nervous. Lunch was a vegetable boiled in water. Sometimes a little fat in it but mostly not. Some potatoes. Supper we received soup with barley that was not too bad. The first year we had one third of a loaf of bread a day. Later only one quarter and in the last three months twice a week only a slice. We were allowed to write letters once every month. In Buchenwald it was only every two months. People who were in the camp a long time and received parcels regularly by Red Cross or relations could stand it. People without parcels were doomed to starvation. The last months I received parcels from Vienna friends but the first six months I hadn’t. There were many children born in the camp. There was one whole block for pregnant women. The children weren’t too badly off. They had milk and the diet for sick people.

more

One thing that struck me when poring through the archives is that I did not come across similar testimonies from other passengers from the Drottningholm. It seems incredible to me that Helene’s was the only one. In my January 14 post, you can see the challenge of looking for documents- there I included a screenshot of the “titles “of documents – the majority do not have identifying features other than date - if you click on the link above, you’ll see that the the title is “Untitled Typewritten Document”. Thankfully, I knew the date of this document, but my search still involved hours of looking. On the other hand, it was much easier for me though than it had been Corry, who did her research before it was online and had to look through boxes of letters and documents at the JDC, I think in Jerusalem.

February 18

No 74                                                              Vienna, 18 February 1941

My dear children and dear Paul! Papa is on his way to send a telegram to you via Hapag. We telegrammed: We urge you most urgently to deal with the affidavit and ship tickets so that we will arrive in time. For Vitali is certain that the time has now come. My last letters always contained a comment about urgency even if it wasn’t all that direct. However, I believe I sent you enough information so that I did not need to be even more emphatic. Well, it has been advised to us that we should send a telegram. We have no choice to do anything else. I would have preferred to send you my obituary than to ask with such urgency for this affidavit. And ship tickets too. But there’s no other way. I ask all three of you to make it clear to the relatives that we are sending these telegrams through our survival instinct and we wish this to be understood that this is the urge to keep oneself alive. This is survival. In these parts, when people use that term, they understand rather an egotism which is of the highest order. I have no fear of starting over again.  

When I was 15, there was nothing for me. No one helped me to get ahead. One can counter that those were other times and that I was still young. But I was looking for work and bread without having learned anything useful. As an apprentice, I could not put myself into service because that kind of work was unpaid and I didn’t have anybody who would guarantee my shelter for that long. I wouldn’t have accepted that from anyone. Every job that I thought I could do was already filled. Even when I thought I was on time – I had to walk very long distances by foot because I didn’t have any money for any kind of transport – then there were 40 or 50 girls waiting in line before me.

It would be ridiculous to draw a parallel between that and today and if I mention my struggle in those days, I’m just doing it to say that the lack of youth is maybe compensated by the practical knowledge I have acquired. Vitali is also not thinking that I could pay for all of our living expenses through my work. Rather, he really has a burning desire to be able to work again and to be allowed to work. We know that it is not possible everywhere in the USA, but in many states we think it would be. When we land there, we will be thankful for every hand which reaches out to help us but only to get on our feet. We have no fear of what comes after. Our needs have become more than modest. A roof over our head, our stomachs will be taken care of.  

At the same time, we also sent a telegram to Onkel Isaac. Maybe he can understand our situation a little bit better. Many acquaintances have turned to Onkel Fulda for an affidavit and have gotten it, but I do not want to get it from him. At the very least, I don’t want to ask him about it. You’ll understand my point of view on that. Am I right? It is so that one feels the need to help Fate along a little bit. One thinks one is pushing and one is pushed. I have to be prepared for Paul’s criticism that I didn’t insist on this earlier. But I thought it would be okay for awhile. Unfortunately, we had to rush into this – things have become more urgent. It is just a matter of getting those who will write our affidavit to convince that there’s no reason to fear that we will exploit them. Letter #1 is still outstanding; Letter #2 will be answered on Friday. With the rush to get to the telegram office one can imagine that a telegram and a repurchase [RP = COD?] agreement would take quite awhile before it gets to you. With our most sincere greetings to Zentners, Schillers, Firestones and to you, I am as always

Helen

Today’s letter is terrifying and heartbreaking. For the first time, we feel Helene’s urgency and fear. Until now, Helene has had confidence that all will work out okay and has felt that hinting at her concerns for their safety was sufficient. Today she shows regret at not having asked for help sooner from distant relatives. I have an earlier letter where she is adamant she does not want to apply to Onkel Erwin for assistance.

As we learn from today’s letter, Helene has been a strong, independent woman all of her life. She felt she had no one to rely on but herself. I am still trying to discover the details. What I do know is that by the time she was 15, she realized she was on her own. Her father was ailing and his business was foundering, her mother was taking care of the Zerzawy grandchildren, her sister in Vienna was not well. By late 1902, at the age of 16, she arrives in Vienna. On her own? With one or both of her parents? To live with her sister Irma? These are answers I still hope to discover.

Helene and Vitali are eager to come to the U.S. and to find a way to support themselves. Vitali was hoping to continue to do his work in metaphysics, but they are not sure whether he would be allowed to do so. Their independent streak was inherited by their children. As teenagers when they first arrived in the U.S., Harry and Eva stayed with relatives while finishing high school. As soon as possible, each of them immediately found ways to support themselves: Eva went to nursing school and Harry joined the army. Their parents instilled in them the need to not rely on anyone but themselves, which may have made it more difficult to get the assistance they needed from relatives to enable their parents to get out of Vienna.

As I was reading today’s letter, I was surprised to see that Helene repeated the concept of being a fatalist and pushing/being pushed, which she described in the story posted on February 15. Clearly, this is an important part of her identity. It occurred to me to look further to see whether this was a quote. In her story on being fatalistic she said she “glaubte zu schieben und bin geschoben worden” - she believed she was pushing and was being pushed. It turns out that, as with so much of what she writes, she was quoting Goethe! The original goes: “Du glaubst zu schieben und du wirst geschoben” - from Part I of Faust. Translation: You think you are pushing and you are being pushed. Free will or fate?

I do not know who Onkel Isaac was – perhaps a relative of Vitali’s in Istanbul. Onkel Erwin Fulda was in San Francisco. If I understand the 1997 family tree correctly, the Fuldas were first cousins of Adolf’s grandparents (Helene’s great-grandparents) – no wonder she didn’t want to ask for help – she probably felt they were barely related and didn’t want to be yet one more person asking for help. I have a photo of Erwin Fulda (according to the family tree he sold meat in San Francisco) with my grandmother (probably in Vienna). I am not sure when it was taken, perhaps the late 1920s or early 1930s?

January 18

As mentioned earlier, I only recently began to get the letters translated that were written in old German handwriting. Today’s letter was translated on New Year’s Eve eve and seemed like an auspicious beginning for this year’s blog – a letter to Helene!

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When I began to research and understand my family papers, I attended a meeting of the SF Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society at the San Francisco Jewish Community Library. It was a monthly drop-in meeting entitled “Brainstorming With the Mavens.” I had no idea that such organizations and resources existed. The “mavens” are amateur and professional genealogists who volunteer their time to help people like me get started or overcome roadblocks on their genealogical research. One reason I attended was that I wanted to know whether I needed to find a Czech translator as well as a German one. The WWI letters looked so foreign that I could not believe they were written in German. I brought a copy of a letter and a maven immediately confirmed that it was in German. That in itself was interesting information since my grandmother’s family came from the Czech area of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Not uncommon for Bohemian Jews but I did not know it at the time.

Today’s letter was found in an envelope addressed to Paul’s brother Robert, so my archivist and I both assumed it was a letter written to him or to the Zerzawy family as a whole. To my astonishment, it was written to Helene, my grandmother and Paul’s aunt! I assume the letter arrived in the envelope it was found in because the envelope and paper look like the same stationery.

One reason it never occurred to us that the letter was written to Helene was that her name is completely unrecognizable (to me at least) in Sütterlin:

The name “Helene” written in Sütterlin

                                                                                    18 January 1918

Dearest Helene!

The dear k.u.k Fieldpost once again creates a lot of torturous suspense for me. But possibly it is not its fault and it is innocent and it is caused by the change of address.

Please for now learn the following facts:

I am healthy and I spent the day in the following manner which is usual manner during the truce/cease fire: partly military exercises, partly doing nothing. Very lazy. Once again I am commander of the unit in the company. The weather is very beautiful, clear and dry.

Your package with gloves and the letter with the rosette it seems has gone missing. It probably will be in Hungary or fallen into enemy hands.

I will write more when I am in a better mood, which will especially be the case when I will have heard from you and the other dear ones.

Yours with kisses

Paul

Translator Amei Papitto and I couldn’t figure out what a “rosette” was – something in the shape of a rose - based on images found on the internet, perhaps it was something out of fabric or rose-shaped cookies. I’d like to think that Helene sent him cookies for the holidays since she loved baking. The family’s wry sense of humor comes through when talking about the lost package.  

January 14

Trying to come to America; A mystery solved!!!!

By January 1946, Helene had been in Istanbul for 9 months. She had only recently been receiving letters from her family and had been having a rough time of it alone in a new place, essentially still a prisoner. I believe Yomtov Kohen was a relative of Vitali’s, perhaps a cousin? I have a packet of his correspondence working to help my grandmother join her children in America.

 Dear Sir,

Referring to your letter of the 10th, I inform you that on the 9th I sent a telegram to the daughter of Mrs Helene Cohen which said: 

“EVA GOLDSMITH, 2379 29th Avenue, San Francisco

 PLEASE PAY IN MY PASSAGE TO HIAS 425 LAFAYETTE ST NEW YORK WHO SHOULD INFORM REPRESENTATIVE ISTANBUL

            HELENE COHEN” 

I hope that Mrs Eva Goldsmith will be able to arrange with the Jewish-American emigration office “HIAS” who will send us the necessary instructions to pay for Mrs Cohen’s passage. As soon as these instructions arrive, we will look for a place on a boat for America.

Please accept, sir, my best regards.

---

 According to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Simon Brod (1893-1962) was “a Jewish businessman from Istanbul, who during World War II helped to rescue an untold number of Jewish refugees who reached Turkey. Brod ran a successful textile importing firm in Istanbul together with his brother Max. During World War II he was employed by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the Jewish Agency for Palestine to assist in the rescue of European Jewish refugees who, in one way or another, had been able to reach Turkey.”

HIAS is the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.

Despite all the hardships and cruelty my grandmother experienced, it is heartening to find how many distant relatives and complete strangers worked hard to help my grandmother reach her children.

As I was preparing this post, I decided to look in the JDC archives again for letters from Simon Brod related to my grandmother’s situation. I know I’d seen his name in earlier searches. Although I didn’t find anything today, I stumbled on a section of the archive related to the passengers on the SS Drottingholm who arrived in Istanbul in April 1945. Over the past year or so I have spent dozens of hours poring through this archive because things aren’t easily searchable. It definitely has the feeling at the end of the first Indiana Jones movie – the treasure exists and is safe, but good luck to you to ever find it! 

One of the reasons I felt I was going down a useless rabbit hole today is that the 148 documents in this particular file were all dated 2/24/1945, well before Helene set foot on the ship or arrived in Istanbul. And yet, there it was! The 5th document entitled “Untitled Typewritten Document” on the 11th page of 15 pages. I do not have permission from JDC to publish the contents of the document but here is a screenshot of my “discovery”.

Screenshot of location in the JDC Archives

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The declaration has answers to 18 questions, some of them Yes-No. Unfortunately I don’t have a copy of the original questionnaire (yet? more searching to be done!). For the past six months, I have been trying to figure out when Helene’s parents had died. I had a few clues and made some assumptions, but had nothing definite. As I mentioned in the January 6 post, finding an earlier date for the end of publication for the Biela-Zeitung implied that Adolf died in or before 1904. Today’s document, despite misspellings and typos of names (Helene Koehn for example), tells us that her father died in 1903 and her mother in 1922. I had looked through Jewish burial records and come up empty-handed for Adolf. I found several possible dates for people with Helene’s mother’s name, but not enough other information to identify the plot as the correct one. Here in an obscure document that probably hasn’t been seen by anyone in decades, I have my answer. From my grandmother’s stories, I had the sense that her father had died soon after 1902, but I had no documentation. I didn’t know about her mother either. I have letters from Paul Z to his grandmother in 1918 so I knew she was still alive at that time, but my mother had no memory of her and thought she had died sometime between 1920-1922. She was right!

As you can see, even across the decades it is possible to discover clues and answers to questions. After my mother and Harry died, I regretted all the family knowledge and lore that had been lost. Yet, through official documentation and my grandmother’s words, every day I have a richer sense of their lives, joys, and struggles.

January 12

Today is another card from POW Erich Zerzawy.

12/I.18.

[Printed on card: Do not write between the lines!]

My dear ones! By way of exception, I can write to you again. There is a transport leaving for neutral countries. All of us here hope to follow soon — not to other countries, but just to go home, which nobody will regret. What do you think? You agree, don’t you? Yes, yes, if only it were happening right now already, your Erich would be so happy knowing that he would be able to hug and kiss all of you for real, the way he does now in spirit.

A few thoughts on the card itself – this one has no censorship stamp, and despite the admonition against writing between the lines, he has done so. As he mentions in the card, he has found a way to send this card through other means.

After reading a recent post about Erich, historian Robert W. Cherny, author of Victor Arnautoff and the Politics of Art (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2017), mentioned that “by early 1917, things were falling apart in Russia.  By mid-1918, the country was in civil war.  The army had been dissolved by the Bolsheviks, so who knows what may have happened to the POW camps?” 

This comment led me to do a bit more research and I stumbled onto the archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross, where I discovered a card with information about Erich which contradicts Paul Zerzawy’s family tree. Since this card was sent to Paul Zerzawy at some point when he was in Vienna, it corroborates my assumption that the year of death on the tree was a typo rather than a lack of knowledge. Especially since the family had letters from Erich dated in 1918. This document says that he fled from Beresowka on July 15, 1918. Presumably the statement on the family tree that he was fleeing for the Chinese border when he died was anecdotal evidence from someone who knew him.

From the International Committee of the Red Cross Archives

Below is a map to show where Erich began and ended his life. It shows where he was born in Bilin, where he was apparently captured in Luck/Lutsk, and where he died in Siberia.

January 8

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Beresowka, 8 January 1917

 My dear ones!

From week to week, still no news, nothing. Now I doubt that my cards have reached you. Others are already home. I am doing the same as always here, don’t worry. Tomorrow, something is supposed to arrive from the Red Cross — probably from Countess Kinsky. Maybe we will get a loan of a few rubles which will then be paid back by you. I am really waiting anxiously for your letters since I don’t know where you are or how you are doing. A thousand kisses. Your Erich

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Like Paul, his younger brother Erich was a soldier during WWI. He was born in 1898. According to the Zerzawy family tree, Erich was captured in Luck (the German name for Lutsk in northwestern Ukraine) in 1916 and died in 1917 – this appears to be a mistake as I have 2 postcards from Erich dated 1918 (back to the importance of not relying on a single source when trying to determine the facts of one’s family). The family tree entry ends with saying that he “was allegedly fleeing to the Chinese border when he was killed”. As a POW, he was imprisoned in Beresowka in Eastern Siberia.

I have 30 postcards from Erich, 29 of them written during his time as a POW. You can see that he is writing to his family in Brüx, Bohemia (now Most, Czech Republic). The only card written before being captured was from July of 1916. The contents of the cards is pretty innocuous, presumably because he knew they were censored (see triangular stamp on card – an Austrian censorship stamp, perhaps the rectangular Russian one is also by a censor).

An interesting detail about Erich’s letters is that he writes in the more modern German script, not in the Sütterlin that Paul was using at that time. Was Paul hoping the censors couldn’t read Sütterlin? Or was it a function of his being a few years older? My grandmother switched from handwritten to typewritten (much easier on the translator!) letters in 1939 because she believed the censors might not have been allowing the letters they couldn’t read to reach their destination.

Something clear from this letter is that thanks to the Red Cross, prisoners of war were able to receive letters, packages, and money to make their lives a bit easier.

Finally, I’ve been thinking about the journey these letters took to make it into my hands (shades of “The Hare with Amber Eyes”). One thing I regret is that as I began to unearth documents I did not keep a record of exactly where I found things and what they were saved together with.

The only evidence of Erich’s brief 20 year existence on this planet is in a typewritten family tree that Paul created (or at least kept) from the 1930s and these 30 postcards. They were considered important enough that they traveled from a small town in Bohemia to Vienna to San Francisco. As I was trying to remember where I found them, I at first thought they were in a box labeled “Paul Z” which included official paperwork, letters and photos from throughout his life. As mentioned in a previous post, I realized that in fact they were in a box of my grandmother’s letters. I am guessing that Paul’s family kept all of his and Erich’s WWI letters which Paul took to the U.S. when he emigrated. I assume that after he died in 1948, my grandmother took possession of them. This was her connection to the little boy she babysat in Bilin before moving to Vienna in 1902, a happier time when all of her family was alive and together.

January 6

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Since I don’t have a letter from January 6, I am posting about the issue of Biela-Zeitung from that day in 1877. In childhood stories, my grandmother wrote that her father began publishing the weekly Biela-Zeitung newspaper in 1874 because he was upset at the corrupt city government and mine owners and wanted to hold them accountable.

In late 2020 once Roslyn had translated all the letters that were legible to her, we spent a few hours looking through the first issues of the Biela-Zeitung in 1874. It was interesting to see the birth of a new publication. It was an 8-page paper published weekly. This was still true in 1877. However the contents and tone had evolved. The pages of those first few issues were filled with train schedules, comparative market prices, and local advertisements, many of them for Adolf Löwy’s own products and services. He also reprinted stories and news items he had found in newspapers across Europe. Sort of the Utne Reader of its day.

This first issue of 1877 has much more content and many more advertisements from towns in and around Bilin; gone are the train schedules and market prices. The first article of the year confirms my grandmother’s sense of why her father published this paper:

Invitation to Subscribers.

On the 1st of January 1877 the Biela-Zeitung began its new year, its fourth.

We can tell you without boasting that the Biela-Zeitung fulfills all the requirements which one might expect from a local paper, and it will be our most sincere goal to fulfill these fair and right requirements of the readers.

While we thus allow ourselves most politely to invite you to our new edition, we assume that in the future we will continue to follow our quest for truth and justice, promoting that which is good and beautiful and lending an ear to public opinion. However we will fight against arrogance, egotism, and unnecessary greed and we will put those items back into the cupboard.

This is what the Biela-Zeitung has always done and we will continue to hold firmly to this policy.

Let us just mention that the Biela-Zeitung, thanks to its large circulation is also suitable as an insert, and we put our trust in the strong support of the public.

Very truly yours

The Editor

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In addition to fighting for what was right, Adolf reported on local news and celebrations, including in this issue a description of local new years celebrations just days earlier. He ended the article with:

“So the year ’76 was buried and the new year was happily greeted. May this year see our hopes fulfilled in a better way than in the last one”

 Sentiments we all are feeling about the year 2020!

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Putting pieces of the puzzle together

I have been amazed on this journey how easily some things have come together. People have been unfailingly kind – generously giving their time, advice, assistance, and support.

By March 2017, I was beginning to understand the extent of the material I had and how much of it was in German. I was at a loss as to how to proceed. What to keep? What should ultimately happen to these documents? How would I know what was worth translating? How on earth would I get anything translated? How would I keep these documents safe? That last question seemed a bit late in the game. Somehow these documents had survived decades of being thrown haphazardly in boxes, stored in humid and non-temperature controlled environments, and the vast majority were in great condition.

Around the time of Harry’s death in January 2017, I researched local volunteer opportunities. Although I wasn’t necessarily looking to work at a Jewish agency, San Francisco’s Jewish Children & Family Services (JCFS) offered a wide range of volunteer possibilities. In March, the director of the JFCS Financial Aid Center called and told me about the financial assistance programs offered by JFCS. They sounded interesting and worthwhile, so I went for an interview. While waiting to meet the director I picked up a brochure from another JFCS program I’d never heard about – the JFCS Holocaust Center.

I contacted the Yedida Kanfer, the director of community education at the Holocaust Center, and requested her assistance helping me figure out how to approach my project – in terms of translation, organization, and archiving. I met with her at the end of March and she provided a wealth of information. By this time, I had learned the name of the newspaper Helene’s father published in Bilin – the Biela-Zeitung. The coordinator found a link to the National Library of Prague which showed that the newspaper was in the archive there. I couldn’t access it, but it was great to know it existed and that I had a good reason to visit Prague!

Later that year I contacted historian Corry Guttstadt who among other treasures sent a link to several editions of the Biela-Zeitung available at the Austrian National Library in Vienna. At about the same time, Google Books made the first 3 years available to download! I’m not sure why Google Books decided to archive this publication – had I and enough other people searched for it so they decided it was important enough? Or just serendipity? Hopefully one day, editions that were published after my grandmother was born will be available. In one of my grandmother’s stories, she mentions that her father encouraged her to write articles for the paper – I’d love to know if she ever did and whether she got a byline.

Another wonderful serendipity was the location of JFCS – across the street from the old Mt. Zion Hospital, where my mother had lived and trained to be a nurse in 1940-1943! Every time I went to volunteer, I felt like I was walking in my mother’s footsteps.

The old Mount Zion Hospital on Post Street in San Francisco.

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One of the fascinating things about doing family research is the wealth of information that is out there and how one can always make new discoveries. Sometimes it’s something that wasn’t available before, sometimes I’m finally ready to understand what I’m looking at. Today I made a discovery while writing this post. One thing I am still trying to discover is when Adolf Löwy died. Part of the confusion for me is that the Czech archive showed the Biela-Zeitung being published until 1938, which made me think he had lived at least that long. However, my grandmother’s papers made me believe that he died much closer to 1902. The citation in the Vienna library seems much more likely – it lists the paper as having been published from 1874-1904. I would guess that Adolf must have died in 1904 or before – at least the search is narrowing.

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New answers bring new questions

Lately, I’ve had two questions that I couldn’t answer: 1) when and where Helene’s father Adolf Löwy was born and died, and 2) when and where Helene’s brother Max died. My mother thought Adolf had died when Helene was 12 or 13. However, I have a story by Helene where she talks about when she was 15 and her father was still alive. My mother thought my grandmother and her mother had gone to Vienna before WWI because Max was living there and practicing medicine. My mother didn’t remember meeting him and thought he might have died in 1920 or 1922 and that he may have had a son named Karl who might have come to the US.

In August I attended a virtual conference on Jewish genealogy. Many sessions were taped for later viewing and I have watched a number of workshops since then. Being fairly new to this subject, each session gives me new skills to do family history research. I am in awe of the number of amateur genealogists out there who volunteer thousands of hours of their time documenting and cataloging towns, families, birth and death records, etc. to save unrelated familes from being lost to history forever.

As with any research activity, after I stumble on some new tidbit of information, I often find that I cannot recreate the steps that got me there. Like Hansel and Gretel, I’m lost in the woods. Here I try to recreate one pathway while it’s still fresh in my memory.

There is an organization called JewishGen that is an incredible resource for research into Jewish genealogy. For example, they have a Jewish burial database that has information on burial records all over the world. I’m pretty sure I found information about the death of two of Helene’s sisters. But I couldn’t find an Adolf Löwy who fit the place and age that my great-grandfather would have been. I found 2 different burial records in Vienna for a Max Löwy who could have fit age and possible death date, and was pretty sure one of them was my Max. JewishGen also has records of doctors in Vienna but I couldn’t find a listing for Max Löwy.

This week I watched a session on “Czech Torah Scrolls Journey and its relevancy to family history research”. I didn’t have a lot of hope that I would learn much, but since my grandmother came from that area and the handout included Bilin, I decided to listen. The main presenter was Julius Müller (http://www.toledot.org/), a Czech genealogist who was mentioned in a number of other sessions - clearly he is someone I need to contact!

Something he said led me to https://www.geni.com/, which other conference speakers had mentioned several times. One speaker said that this was a site that is trying to create a “family tree of the world”. It is pretty public so people have to be comfortable sharing freely their information.

On Geni, I typed in either Adolf’s or Max’s name and actually came up with a mini family tree that had been created in 2018. It included Adolf and Rosa, Max and his wife and children (!) including Karl and Karl’s wife, and two of my grandmother’s sisters who had died in Bilin. Nothing about my grandmother though. Unfortunately, the tree did not have the answers to my questions. But I thought I must have discovered a relative who had created the tree and contacted him. No, it was created by a man in Israel who I guess along with many others (volunteer or paid, I don’t know) is gathering information from vital records to create these trees.

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Family tree found on Geni.com. Note that most of the family members I know and care about aren’t listed! Click on image to enlarge

Interestingly, Max’s oldest child is listed as Otto and included a birthdate in 1902. but there was no further info. Karl was listed as being born in 1904 as Karl Otto. I thought it was odd that both children would have Otto in their names. I went back to the Jewish burial database and found that an Otto Löwy had died in Vienna in 1903 at the age of 10 months. I assume Karl’s middle name was in his honor. And that Karl was named after Max’s mother’s beloved brother Karl Kraus who had died in 1889 and had been very kind to the family (something I recently learned when transcribing a story by my grandmother about the 1889 flu epidemic).

Having more names in Max’s family, I went to Ancestry.com (which during these days of Covid can be accessed from home through your local public library) and found a NY draft card for Karl where he lists Max as next of kin and shows Max’s home address and the address of his medical practice! Then I found Max’s intent to apply for citizenship as well as a ship manifest that show that he and his wife arrived in NY in March 1940 on a ship coming from Caracas, Venezuela! Nothing about when Karl arrived - before, after, who knows? I’m sure I could find more info out and perhaps some day I’ll look.

Learning all this has made me rethink the story of my grandmother’s life that I’ve created from all the documents I had and it has raised so many more questions. My grandmother wrote lovingly of her brother Max in her stories about her childhood. My mother thought he had died when she was a baby or before, so clearly they did not spend time together in Vienna. Did Max leave Vienna as early as 1922? Had there been a falling out? Did he go somewhere else in Europe? When did he go to Venezuela? Why did he not stay in contact with my grandmother? It’s surprising to me that my grandmother had to rely on more distant cousins for assistance to get to America. They were Max’s cousins too! Of course, I don’t know the story of Max’s journey and whether he would have had resources to help. But couldn’t he have written?!