December 29

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Today we see an early letter from Helene in Vienna to her son Harry in San Francisco. Harry will be 16 on his next birthday in January.

Vienna, 29 December 1939

My dearest Harry Boy!

Jo must be even more of an optimist than I am because she added birthday wishes for you to the community letter, assuming that the letter will actually reach you in time. I am a little skeptical on this point, because I haven’t heard from any source that you had received even one of those sent to you. Even if that were the case, I hope you have a cheerful and happy birthday – the first one you spend as a foreigner. Foreigner? No, you’re not a foreigner! Incredibly kind people look after you and since Eva and Paul, who are always there for birthday parties, will certainly spend part of the day with you, you won’t have time to be sentimental. And you shouldn't be. Believe me, we are there in spirit. I am very worried about you, which you will understand and therefore I am glad there is someone there with you. Harry, my sweet boy, be happy and don’t worry about us – it really isn’t necessary. It would be a shame to waste your time that way. Little Eva spent her birthday away from home last year, but at that time there was the likelihood we would meet soon afterwards, which is not so much the case this time. When we do see each other, the joy will be just that much greater. When I’ve gotten the first of your letters and have a picture of what you’re doing and how you’re living, it’ll be so much easier.

The winter is starting to be like the winter of 1928-29, but it cannot harm us, because: “And no matter how much the wind growls, the grim gestures, etc.” Yes, it must be spring soon! The days already are beginning to get longer even though we don't even notice it. But it doesn't change the world order which it has been for thousands of years. The fact that I look forward to spring is like my childhood and I am starting to act childish. No, it is not childish to be happy that you won’t have to walk around with red ears and blue noses. Other memories of winter joys are currently only in memory and in the future, and I prefer the eternal spring.

My Christmas wishes were not fulfilled. I didn't get any letters from you and I must content myself that they are on their way. I am getting philosophical here. 

What do you think about the terrible earthquake in Anatolia? I am quite worried about the consequences of this catastrophe, because Casablanca and Los Angeles are on the same meridian. I would be happy if this catastrophic year were over – thank God it is coming to an end.

My dear boy, please tell all our dear relatives that I think about them with gratitude. Gratitude! A poor word to describe what I’m feeling today, but that's what I’ve got. 

I wrote to Tillie, Bertha, Hilda and Nathan as well as I could in English. Whether they received my letters is another matter. They wouldn’t have lost much if they didn’t get them.

So don’t worry, I’m not going to make any helpful suggestions. My far-flung children can certainly figure out that I wish them to have happiness not only on their birthday but in their whole life because happiness is an elixir for life. Let’s get rid of all sad thoughts.

I kiss you so much that I can barely breathe and I am happy.

Your Mutti
Helene & Vitali-baba

---

Helene is sad to be separated for the first time from her son on his birthday. Eva and Harry were in Istanbul for for her 18th birthday in May 1939, so that they could get passports to come to San Francisco. In that case, Helene knew they would see each other soon. By December 1939, Helene had no idea what the future held.

We learn about the physical world of late 1939. According to a website discussing the weather in 2021, the winter of 1928-1929 was one of the coldest winters in Europe in the last century. As Helene reported, the winter of 1939-1940 was also bitterly cold. According to Wikipedia, the earthquake Helene mentions was the worst to hit Turkey since 1688.  

Despite her sadness at being separated from her children, Helene tries to include a note of hope, misquoting lines from a poem of that name. Here is the Google Translate version of the original poem by Emmanuel Geibel:

Hope

“And no matter how much winter is looming
With defiant gestures
And if he scatters ice and snow about
It must be spring then.

And no matter how dense the mists are
Before the gaze of the sun
It wakes you with its light
Once the world to bliss.

Just blow you storms, blow with power
I shouldn't worry about it
On quiet feet overnight
The spring is coming.

Then the earth wakes up green
Don't know how you happened
And laughs up at the sunny sky
And would like to pass with pleasure.

She weaves blooming wreaths in her hair
And adorns himself with roses and ears of wheat,
And lets the little fountains trickle clear
As if they were feeding joy.

So be quiet! And how it may freeze
O heart, be satisfied;
It is a great May day
Given to the whole world.

And if you often fear and dread,
As if hell were on earth,
Trust in God without hesitation!
It must be spring then.”

---

For perhaps the only time, Vitali signs his name to a letter, as well as the word “baba” - “Father” in Turkish.

December 28

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Today we have a card from Helene’s nephew 18-year old POW Erich Zerzawy in eastern Siberia addressed to his siblings in Brüx, Bohemia. Later letters from the POW camp were sent on Red Cross stationery, so this was probably sent in 1916. The card had to pass through the censor in Vienna before being passed on to its recipients.

Beresowka 30/XII

Dear Siblings, Dear Grandma!

I am healthy and, despite my circumstances, doing fine. Unfortunately, I still haven’t gotten any news from you. But I continue to hope that you are doing well at home. In the new year we will probably see each other. I hope that you will write to Paul, Helene, etc. because I am only allowed to write two cards a week.

Farewell. Don’t worry about me. 1000 kisses.

Your Erich

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This is one of the earliest letters sent from Erich as a POW. We saw what may have been his first letter in the December 12th post. The only thing I know about him is through these short cards and letters. Reading between the few lines, he appears to have been a very mature, sensitive, and loving young man. He rarely complains, and usually tries to be upbeat, assuring his family that he is fine and asking them not to worry. Rather, he worries about them. What a generous soul and what a tragedy that his life was cut short.

Like his aunt Helene who would be imprisoned almost 30 years later during a different war, one of the many privations he suffered was the limited number of letters he was allowed to send and receive. For a family that valued connection and contact, this must have felt like yet another torment.

December 27

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Today we have a letter from Helene in Vienna to her daughter Eva in San Francisco. Helene has been apart from her children for more than a year.

Clipper #65

Vienna, 27 December 1940

My golden Eva child!

When I sent the official birthday letter to Hilda, which only included a heartfelt greeting to you, you must have been thinking to yourself: “what marvelous stuff is mom up to now?” I often ask myself that when I come home in the evening exhausted, partly because I’m so tired and partly because my brain is not getting enough healthy food, and I cannot fall asleep. So I lay awake in bed and I think about you and I am very happy that my thoughts are not rousing you out of your sleep. If our bedtime were the same, I would have to, as a loving mother, just imagine it. Sometimes (?) I’m just so afraid and I am shocked at the innate powers in us which allow us to survive this separation. We received letter #11 from November 13 on December 8 and that was the last letter from you, #9 still has not arrived.

Now I want to tell you why my days are so full. When you have two unfamiliar households in one apartment with different habits, well there’s quite an incredible need to get along and compromise and it requires a lot of tact just so everything will seem to run smoothly. I am usually the responsible party, although I really can’t complain about my tenants – they do what they can, but really, that’s all they do. When we are making breakfast, I do everything so we don’t collide. It’s not really necessary to put two tea mugs out when one person needs warm water to do the washing, they say: sorry, you can’t do it now - we don’t have an extra burner. So we have to divide up our work and our habits in the same way because we can’t do everything at the same time and so it takes longer than it normally would for that amount of work. Another thing is that the taxes are now harder to figure out than they were before because now there’s a whole different way that that is done. Just like a sick person causes more work than a healthy one, a dying business provides you with more to do than a perfectly healthy one. Besides that, I have quite an extensive correspondence, which in many cases gets no answer. If those who receive my answers would go to the trouble of considering that I am giving them everything I possibly can, in other words the little bit of free time and the last bit of energy I have, I’m sure my letters would be answered more conscientiously.

However, I haven’t changed much and I still think 2 times 2 is 5, and my sense of humor is irrepressible, only that I use it as they say in the “Mikado”:

 “I call my humor forth
in every case because the material that the court
gives me
is so cheerful and popular.
Even if such an idiot
would lose his head.” etc. etc [it rhymes in German]

Because of all the work that the post office has with the Christmas holidays and the coming new year, I can hardly expect to get mail in the next 14 days and I will have to strive to get through this time as best I can. I am imagining what a wonderful feeling it will be when I open the door to the mail carrier and he actually hands me a letter from you.

Harry-boy is not going to get his due because I don’t have time to write to him today. Please give him greetings and birthday wishes and kisses from me, because maybe the birthday letter won’t get there.

At the moment it is necessary again to pay close attention to the numbering of the letters and to tell me which letters of mine did not arrive (at least since last time). 

That’s all for today because I need to go to the dentist, because my most important Christmas surprise was a filling that fell out.

Live well my good, brave Eva-girl and do write in detail so that I can be recompensed for the letters that got lost. Please give all the dear ones my greetings and a big hug from

Helen

P.S. Don’t forget to say hello to Miss Maxine from me.

---

Although Helene mentions that she greeted Eva in her birthday letter to Hilda, in fact it was a postscript to the letter she wrote on the same day to Harry, which we saw in the December 20th post. I think she saved copies of all her letters, but since the P.S. was a handwritten afterthought, she probably forgot which of the letters she added it to.

Helene’s unquenchable thirst for news from her children rings out loud and clear, as it does in so many of her letters. I don’t know when Eva and Harry began numbering their letters – if they did so religiously, it means their mother has written six letters for each one they sent.

We hear a little about the hardships in Vienna, about which we learned in more detail in other letters: their failing business, living with housemates, unreliable mail – and to top it off – dental  problems whose cost they could hardly bear.

My husband grew up on Gilbert and Sullivan, and I showed him Helene’s lines in German from The Mikado. He’s pretty sure that she made up her own lyrics to the song “A More Humane Mikado (My Object All Sublime).” The cadence of her lyrics work with the chorus:

My object all sublime
I shall achieve in time —
To let the punishment fit the crime —
The punishment fit the crime;
And make each prisoner pent
Unwillingly represent
A source of innocent merriment!
Of innocent merriment!

One thing that struck me in this letter was Helene’s comment that for her 2x2=5. When I was in high school, the philosophy behind and rules for teaching math changed, with the advent of “New Math.” As we have seen this year, my grandmother loved language. She passed on her love of wordplay to her children, who in turn passed it on to their children. My mother loved writing poems in honor of special occasions and her poems for retiring colleagues were the hit of the San Francisco Public Health Department. I am in awe of my mother’s fluency – I cannot imagine writing poetry and satire in a second language, certainly not with much success. When I was introduced to and frustrated by New Math, I was inspired to write a poem myself. It began:

“New Math is fun,
New Math is great,
When 1 and 1
And 4 make 8….”

I don’t recall anything about New Math, but I remember the first lines of my poem!

December 24

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Today we have a letter from Helene in Istanbul to her nephew Robert Zerzawy in England. Yesterday, we saw a letter from Robert written a day earlier to her children in San Francisco. In it, he recalls their childhood in Vienna. Today, Helene does the same today and remembers happy times she had with Robert and Paul in Bohemia.

“There is no greater sadness than to remember
the happy times amid the misery.” 

Istanbul, 24 December 1945

My dear Robert!

When I received your letter filled with love, the first family letter in my exile, I cried for the first time since I’ve come under the radar. Today is almost predestined to hold my lost Paradise before my eyes. Do I not in spirit tear off a calendar page every day, and every day, every minute, every second, which I spend here without purpose, useless, and unhappy, did I not know that today is the day that I have chosen as the eve of a family week? Outside the sun shines as if it were May, only the sadly short days remind me that we are still deep in winter. The long nights are horrible, I fear them more than the Gestapo, blessed memories.

Robert, when I was ordered by the Command in Ravensbrück, along with 31 other respectable women on the 28th of February, to go to Turkey, none of us thought nor believed that we had been given freedom. I dared to ask what will happen with our men in Buchenwald and the “Political Superintendent” replied that he could give me no precise answer to this, but that he believed that we might meet them in Lübeck or in Sweden.

Our group waited five days for Turkish students living in various German university cities. On the fifth day came transport with about 150 persons, consisting of women, men, and children, Spanish Jews who lived all over the world, but who had been housed en famille in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. My courage and hope to be reunited with Vitali grew. We were transported via Flensburg-Copenhagen to Elsinore, from there to Sweden and Helsingborg where a reporter from a Stockholm newspaper promised to notify Eva. Through him it became known that I was in Sweden. From Helsingborg we were taken to Gothenborg, where we waited for diplomatic transport.

The general consuls of Vienna, Berlin, and Hamburg comforted me by saying that those form Buchenwald took another route and perhaps would be taken to Turkey via Marseille. My courage began to sink. Via Skagerak and Kattegat we went to Norway, then the Faroe Islands where we picked up internees from  England, and from there to Liverpool (how close I was to you), Lisbon, Gibraltar, along the north African coast to Port Said then via the Dodekanese through the Dardenelles to Istanbul.

Vitali’s sisters, who had read my name in the newspaper immediately looked me up and overwhelmed me with questions. “Where is Vitali?” Why didn’t you bring him with you?” “How could you go away without him?” It was not meant as badly as it sounded. The people had, and have, no idea about what and how it was in Europe. When I finally managed to convince them that I was not responsible for world affairs they became nice and friendly with me. A feeling of friendship (hostility?) towards them, and also they towards me, has not been overcome. It is strange that I seem to not only have more rapport with the younger generation, but that I understand them better. 

The difference between East and West is too enormous. Yesterday I received an answer to my inquiry to: Foreign Relations Department, British Red Cross & Order of St. John, Wimborne House Arlington 35 London SW 1. A MmeY. St. Martin Watts requested still more data that should help to make the finding of Vitali easier. For two months my completed and signed papers have been ready at the consulate; in the meantime, two ships have left without me; because of fatal circumstances my departure was prevented. Perhaps it is better so, perhaps before the departure of my ship I’ll hear some news of Vitali and I can answer the unspoken question: “Helen, where is Vitali? – Read: Cain, where is your brother Abel?” – I can give a joyful answer: He lives!

Robert, my dear dear boy, I have read your letter so often, and again, or more correctly, I’ve discovered a kind of “dislocation” of the heart and mind. You ask yourself, how all of you, who did not have to go through my suffering, can understand this through my eyes? I am so happy that each of you was spared this.

Love is a kind of Hydra, that for every head that you cut off grows nine new ones. Had I ten children and fifty nephews, my supply of love would not diminish, on the contrary it would overflow. (Pardon my pathetic style it is not intentional. I am no longer accustomed to writing letters and when I go from one extreme to another, I beg for your complete pardon.)

Robert, everything in this world has its price. I have paid the highest price for my good fortune. When I built a nice home for my children it was not just my thought, as it is with all mothers, that her children would have a better life than she herself had, but a vow that I made when I came back from “relaxing vacation” in Brüx. It took weeks before I recovered from my recuperation trip. To see you freeze, I mean mentally, in the comfortable warm rooms, always cuts into my heart. Paul’s moody nature and your caring disposition are the results of an apparently brilliant, but joyless and loveless youth.

Your little mother did what and how she could. Robert how often have I longed in the last two years for that love, which, when I was still young and immature I scorned, because I believed I was being crushed by love. I also yearn for Vitali’s care, tutelage, and his desire to think of me.

Robert, perhaps it seems to you that I see my past life through rose-colored glasses. No Robert, believe me I was lucky that I could build myself up and that I did not fall into depression but was always mentally fully conscious. Paul can verify this for you; I talked with him about it once. I did not lead a Polykrates existence which an Egyptian king would have envied. On the contrary, I always said that I lived the purest life of the treasure seeker: “daily work, evening guests, unhappy times, joyful celebrations.”  The joyful celebration is what I lived for: celebrations of all beliefs, birthdays, all were celebrated joyfully; my children should see only happy faces around them, enjoy music and happiness, eat well and much, “My fiery writing on the wall: Brüx.”

Robert, dear, as you have written me this dear and sweet letter, I believe that you were thinking of the same outing that Paul, you and I made from Brüx up to the Sauerbrunnen. As we passed a particular part of the marvelous row of chestnut trees, where a construction site was for sale at the time, one of us thought that we should build our family castle in the air at this place. We spun our wishful daydream further, until we came to the coffee house and lying there on a nice birch bench, we imagined everything down to the smallest detail. I remember this as clearly as if it were yesterday, and that an oncoming freight train brought us out of our day dream and forced us to think about our return trip. I glanced once more to the right to my beloved Borschen, one of them straight ahead at the church tower, whose song, “Enene, Enene” still rings in my ears today. When I take the next boat, I’ll be at the Aja Sofia in about 30 minutes and will think of the simple village church of Bilin and hear the bells chiming like the music of the spheres. Just as Wagner’s gods dreamed of their Walhalla, I dream with you of our home. The price that Vitali and I have paid does not seem too high to me. When the children left home, I did away with all birthdays and holidays, that is, I postponed them and said inwardly that we will celebrate them later. There are now so many to catch up on and with the new ones that must be celebrated, then our reunion will be one joyful celebration after another, as the magic word, my magic word rings.

I have apologized for my jumping around, but I’m not quite as crazy as I seem after this letter, but it is impossible to keep one’s thoughts straight when one shares a single room with 8 strangers and one sleeps in the same room with them, and each of the 8 receives visitors and they converse in a motley of strange languages. 

Do you know that I only found out by pure chance that Eva is married and that only just now after months at the consulate I was told the name of my son-in-law? Everl wrote a short letter to her cousin Lisette De Sevillja in May in which announced that she married on the 13th of January (Harry’s birthday), that she thinks I’m in Sweden and that Harry is still in the South Pacific. Robert that is all I know about my children. Wasn’t old Galotti right when he said, “He who does not lose his sanity in these circumstances has nothing to lose.” In my whole life I have never heard so much talking as here, and have spoken so little myself. I find it merciful to live in this Babel. I’m in the greatest company. A young Greek woman was reading her Shakespeare, a fine Oxford edition, next to her Glossary. At night I give myself concerts, I hum my Beethoven, my Mozart, my Schubert. I only here learned to understand the Wanderer Symphony: where you are not, there is happiness. Beethoven never let his audience go home in a gloomy mood; therefore, let us both sing with a different note: joy, beautiful spark of the gods -- or is it still too early. Since I’ve been here, I’ve heard no word more often than “patience,” I live with it. Robert, perhaps we will see each other before this letter reaches you.

Please greet and thank Otto and Kamillo for me, I myself kiss you with unbroken love.

Helen 

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Helene begins her letter with a quotation from Dante’s Inferno, which prepares us for the sad and nostalgic tone that follows. Robert is the most emotional of her relatives, and, along with his brother Paul, they are the only people left with a connection to and memory of their childhood in Bohemia – she and her nephews’ mother grew up in Bilin, and the boys grew up in Brüx (now Most), about 8 miles away. Here, she writes of a day she spent with her nephews in Bilin, where they saw the Sauerbrunn – the mineral spring, and the Borschen – the mountain looming over the town which we read about in the April 22nd post. She hears the church bells calling her childhood nickname, Enene. However, when Helene wrote about her childhood memories in the 1950s, she had very little nostalgia for Bilin – she made it clear that she was thrilled to leave it far behind when she moved to Vienna in 1902.

We hear echoes from letters of written years ago: Helene invokes the legend of Polycrates which she wrote about in a letter to her children in 1939 – see December 14th post. Eva and Helene both wrote of “castles in the air” — see April 27th and September 24th posts. She recalls the things that we have seen bring her the most comfort – poetry (Goethe and Heine - see links above) and music – perhaps the same things that helped her survive the past few years.

Although the vast majority of Helene’s and the Zerzawy brothers’ correspondence was in Harry’s possession, my mother Eva had all of the letters their mother sent from Istanbul in 1945-1946. In 2006, a friend translated this letter for me. He had trouble with some of the references and I couldn’t make sense of them either. After being immersed in my grandmother’s words and life for the past few years, her stories and references now all have meaning.

Despite the sorrow and loss of the past 6 years, Helene tries to shake off her mood and end on a lighter note to lift her and Robert’s spirits, quoting Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s 9th symphony.

December 21

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Today we have an early letter from Helene in Vienna to her children in San Francisco – 18-year old Eva and 15-year old Harry.

Clipper letter No. 8, 21st December 1939

I-A-Eva!
Hi-Ha-Harry!

Two months ago today — it’s been exactly 9 weeks since you arrived in Frisco and I can only imagine your impressions of the new world, because no news from you has reached us. For heaven’s sake, not all the ships that might have brought your letters can have sunk. Have you written us by air letter? I don’t understand why other people are getting post. I hope you will get the letter from Olga pretty soon and that you will answer please.

Nothing has happened to us, and my head is doing its best to entertain you, but it’s not working today. You probably don't care very much about letters – you have new experiences every day simply because the way of life there is quite different from ours – quite apart from the current situation. I hope one day to find all about all these differences and how you feel about them when the post is working better. For now, this waste of time waiting around is bothering me, and as much as I’d like to do it, I can’t write to all my loved ones because I would have to use a dictionary for every word, so unfamiliar to me is any kind of intellectual activity right now. Please, excuses to all. A letter from you would really awaken my lust for living and give me the ability to express my feelings and thoughts again

Today I’ll leave you with this letter, which was only intended as a sign of life, and my current reluctance to write will soon turn into the opposite again.

With countless greetings and kisses to you and all the loved ones, I am your mother.

Helene

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Helene begins this letter to her children by playing with the vowel sounds of the first syllables of their names. In yesterday’s post, we saw a letter she wrote to Hilda — written a year later than this one — where she parodied a popular children’s Christmas song. I wonder whether she was humming it as she wrote today’s letter? And perhaps subtly invoking the tune in her children’s minds as she began the letter.

Although we can’t read the first impressions they sent their parents, we have the letter Eva wrote to their cousin Paul Zerzawy who met their ship in New York in October and put them safely on the train to San Francisco.

December 17

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Today we have the letter Helene’s nephew soldier Paul Zerzawy wrote to his family in Brüx, Bohemia which he promised in the October 15th post.

#10

Fieldpost 211, 14. December 1917 (finished 17. December 1917)

My dear ones!

The good news from our front here, which you must have heard with joy, has probably also reassured you that the pause in my letter writing did not signify anything bad. As I told you already by postcard, I was once again very busy and didn’t have much time or space to write. That is still true, as you can see from what I am going to describe to you.

Therefore, it is very convenient for me that when this letter arrives in Brüx, it will find all of you together, my dear ones. This way it will be easier for me to do justice to your wishes for more detail.

I will be so badly behaved and start talking about myself right away – it’s more convenient for me.

Since the 30th I have more or less told you the most important thing: that I have been ordered to join the machine gun company. I was not very happy about that. I had the most beautiful life imaginable. The Russians have almost never fired guns, the Romanians very rarely, and even before the armistice, total calm was almost a matter of course. Until then, the outpost position was the only somewhat dangerous place because of artillery and mines, but now it was used for recreation. One had good food, warm shelter, little duty, saw some interesting things; whereas in Keseren one had to build all roads and positions, often in the middle of the night.

The Russians on the other side of the Seretz came very freely down to the riverside, and heard speeches and conversations which unfortunately we could not understand. During one such episode, someone (an officer candidate) shot at a neighboring outpost. He was dragged to the river bank and they beat him black and blue in front of our eyes. Discipline must be maintained!

During the night of the 30th, we saw that the people across the river firing an enormous amount of lightning ammunition: they celebrated the truce with fireworks and music. We didn’t hear about it until the next day and it only applied partially to our location. I would have loved to have spent the next few days in position with the company, but then came my orders.

I already wrote that in Keseren, I had a nice shack (which we had to fix up first) with electric light and almost entire windows and doors, as well as officers’ food, privileges, and my own orderly.

Anyway, I already knew about the announcement of the armistice here in B., positioned about an hour and a half behind the first line.

In six weeks, I am supposed to learn perfectly about a new weapon, in all its details, starting from the service of the lowest soldier up to the leadership of the machine gun company. Accordingly, my hours of duty are 6:30- 11; 2-5, 6-7. Partly lessons, partly the equipment, partly shooting. In all weather. For example, now there is bitter cold. Our winter equipment is spotless. Until the day before yesterday I had a bad room – especially because of a lack of light and wood for heating. The last is a very bad thing on our otherwise ideal front. Here there are no forests, the trees in the widely disbursed villages have to be left standing because they offer the only natural hiding places in this lowland, which is covered with grass and flat as a table. The only means of acquiring wood is euphemistically called “comandeering.” Since the day before yesterday, I have been living with 4 other officer candidates, which is a little better.

Hauptman Hladik is an active commander — not evil, but unrelenting.

Especially we who are platoon commanders-to-be are being challenged and must work very hard. Strict discipline, like in peacetime. My inspector is a deputy officer, a nice person. The food is – despite poor conditions and compared to the food with the Landsturm -- plentiful.

In the above, I gave a truthful description, but I don’t mean to say that I am badly off. I have settled in quickly, am healthy, and quite content.

Because: first of all, later I have the prospect of becoming a platoon commander in a machine gun formation, and to enjoy all the benefits granted to this kind of weapon.

Second, there is the need to study (we have also text books and specialist magazines here, even technical literature!) and the shaking up of my brain, which comes with that studying has been good for my brainbox which has been idling for too long. (By the way, a very interesting course of study)

Third, I have good comrades with whom to socialize. We 5 cadets that I already mentioned (1 Neuner – [perhaps also from Landsturm #9], 1 Viennese, 2 Trieste, and myself) are all of the same age, musically inclined, similar interests – we couldn’t have done better.

It’s a shame that it only lasts 4-5 weeks, because in the former Landsturm environment, despite its coziness and lack of adventure, in general people were too old for me. Now we have fun and we amuse ourselves with the civilian population (here there are some, but poor and downtrodden). If we have enough time, sometimes we have a few bottles of wine brought to us -- it is pretty good and cheap here -- and we have the gypsies play something. It is real carefree camp life!

At Christmas I must stay here! So, I cannot fulfill the wishes you have often voiced to be at home with all of you! My time will come in 4, 5, or 6 months. As much as I can, I will spend the holidays (we will not have much free time anyway) with the comrades who all complain that nowadays they are not receiving the same kind of shipments from their homeland as in former years, when it was a better situation back home.

As you may know, Romania is a fairytale land from which you can easily send packages, flour and all other kinds of groceries to Austria. In the past, as a company the field troops were sent directly flour, peas, etc. Now these rations have been so much diminished that I cannot count on being given anything in the near future. A second way is the buying of military central food supplies for officers. I have already gone there and spoken in our central food depot (Landsturm #9) and with a lot of effort I have been promised a little bit of flour and peas. But unfortunately, I was called away before.

The third way: shopping with civilians. Here there is not much to be had. I want to see if I can bargain for a few things, when the direct purchasing and appropriation officers go further into the interior. It is also difficult to get boxes and flour sacks. Then also (hopefully only temporary) the barring of “packages to home.” I’m deliberately not asking for money for this purpose, because there I don’t want to take on a promise which I can’t keep. If I am really hard up, I can always borrow something. My own needs until now have been met with my pay. Of the money that I took with me from Leitmeritz, there remains for me after equipment, buying gloves, lightning articles, a small amount which most likely will be spent for our Christmas celebration.

This is all that I have to say about myself. Therefore, I will now answer each of your letters and cards:

Dear Papa!

The letter of the 28th of November, which was forwarded to me from Landsturm #9, made me especially happy because of the news of Erich’s promotion [?]. Hopefully, he will soon move into officer’s quarters and the days of his suffering soon will be over, should he still be in Russia.

I just don’t wish him to have to stick his nose in another time!

It also could happen to me on another front. Well, I expect everything with calm and confidence – in the end, the war will be over! The lack of newspapers, especially local ones, is really noticeable here – I learn about the news of the day too late. As far as money is concerned, I would be very grateful if you would send me a small money reserve. It is not necessary because I do not require more than I get paid, but I had many expenses in Morganda and on the trip, so that most of the money I received in August from Robert, meaning from you, has been used up. I am very happy to hear that you are doing well as far as your service is concerned. Spend the vacation -- which according to others’ letters you will probably get – pleasantly, and please send me a few lines from there!

—-

Dear Robert!

One after another of your letters has arrived. Also, the one address addressed to FP 211 with a card from Erich, the last from December 8th. Many thanks for your detailed report!

Please give my greetings to all friends who ask about me. For example, Lido (is his address still FP 461/1?), Robert Ullman. I also ask you to write to Erich for me – I cannot write to him directly. I will soon send a letter to you to be passed on to him, thus far I haven’t been able to. If you want to send me something in a Fieldpost package, I ask for (depending on availability) candles, cigarettes (better in a letter), a (yellow) cadet collar rosette, stationery (the same quality as this). Of course, it doesn’t have to be. Do you have new photos or drawings which you could send me? How about your law and language studies? Write always what you are doing and how things are going. I enjoy every letter and am only sorry that I can’t answer as often as I would like.

—-

To my dear Käthe: I thank you for your many cards, you will find all your questions answered in the first part of this letter. I expect from your conversation with Papa, the final resolution of the difficult question, Srachatitz [?] or not? Unfortunately, I cannot picture how it has been going for you since that first unpleasant time, because the first detailed letters were missing and the cards were silent concerning the most important issue. Maybe we will catch up?

The fact that dear Grandmother insists on writing long letters to me is proof that she thinks and worries about me more than I deserve.  I have confirmed your letter to Morganda, haven’t I? Did the answer not arrive?

 —-

Dear Helen!

You too will be in Brüx when these lines arrive and I hope you will find everyone healthy. I thought that you had fallen ill when you moved, but then came your letter of the 10th and two packages with 4 [lottery tickets? Treats?] The gloves have not yet arrived. My dearest gratitude for these things! Only after I sent you my requests did I realize how difficult it is to get these things. This comes about because of the ignorance which is common in the field about the difficult conditions back home! We just say: send it! I hope that at least the money got there?!

—-

I wish all of you a happy vacation and holidays. I don’t have to tell you how much I would love to be there.

During this time, think of me, Your son, brother, etc.

Paul

---

This is the longest letter I have from Paul. It is the only one on which he numbered the pages, which was very helpful as we tried to figure out the order of other letters that had not been kept in proper order. The writing convention at the time was to start with a single sheet of paper, fold it in half, begin writing on the right-hand side, turn the page over and write on each half, and then return to the front page and finish writing on the left-hand side, for a total of 4 “pages”. That was easy enough to decipher if the letter was a single sheet, but when the letter went on to several sheets of paper and was in old German script, it was impossible for my archivist and I to determine the order of the pages when we were first organizing the letters. In the case of today’s letter, Paul completed 4 sheets of paper as described, and finished writing on a smaller, lined piece of paper front and back:

Paul corroborates the information I’ve read about the Landsturm regiments – that they generally consisted of older men and were less likely to see action. For some reason, Paul spent most of the war in such a unit. The timing of Paul’s reassignment to a machine gun regiment was fortuitous. This Wikipedia entry describes the ceasefires and subsequent armistice between Russia and the Central Powers (Austro-Hungarian Empire, Bulgaria, Germany, Ottoman Empire).

Although I don’t quite understand what Paul said about his brother Erich, who is at this point in a Russian POW camp in Siberia, he certainly hopes that Erich’s life might now be easier that with the armistice, and perhaps he will be released. The fear remains that upon returning home, Erich could be sent to serve a different unit.

Paul is already thinking about how to provide flour for his family – as we saw in earlier posts, in Fall 1918, he will send many kilos home to provide them with sustenance in the lean times to come. 

It is interesting to read this letter the day after we saw a letter from Paul’s cousin Harry more than 25 years later – they both talk about studying technical material and how it helps to keep their minds sharp in the midst of what is often a boring existence.

We saw this 1921 self-portrait by Robert in the June 30th post:

There is so much more to say about this letter, yet it speaks for itself. I love thinking about my grandmother and the rest of the family passing Paul’s letter from person to person and reveling in every detail – almost as if he is there with them.

December 16

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Today we see two letters written on the same day from G.I. Harry Lowell in New Guinea to his sister Eva in San Francisco – one “business,” and the other personal.

New Guinea
December 16, 1944

Dear Eva,

Please have some nice flowers sent to Tillie and Hilda on their birthdays, January 11th and 12th, and be sure to have the cards sent with them.

Enclosed you’ll find a money order and the cards.

If ten dollars aren’t sufficient for two pretty bouquets, please lay out whatever the difference is and I’ll reimburse you by next mail.

Thank you!

Love,
Harry.

P.S. Please advise me of Bertha’s birthday in your next letter. I think it is in September.

---

New Guinea
December 16, 1944

Dear Eva,

Today is one of those days on which I get the urge to write a lot of letters. If anything exciting were happening here I would be able to write more letters. As I live a rather colorless life, however, I can put in my letters nothing more interesting than gripes, pipe dreams, weather conditions, etc. I do hope this latest apology for my rare letters sounds plausible to you.

I received your air mail letter of November 18, and after reading it, came to the conclusion that your handwriting is getting to the point of illegibility – (not that I have any room to talk). I suggest that we found a society or club that’ll carry on the custom of cryptic correspondence. You, Hilda, and myself will be the originators of said club; shall we call the club “Knights of the Dainty Pen”? (Any suggestions for an appropriate name are welcome.)

Now that I am through insulting, I’ll turn to the news; I’ll leave a little space below in the event something interesting happens while I write this letter:

You see, my letters are bound to be uninteresting. I finally decided to enroll in the Armed Forces Institute and am taking a correspondence course at present. There are about sixty or so courses available and I plan to fill the time between now and the end of the war with going through all those courses (It’s a long war!)

The course I am working on now appealed to me at the time of course selection; I thought the subject would be very interesting and educational and furthermore the title of the course suggested the course to be more or less a snap. It’s “Waterworks and Sewage Plant Operation.” (Sounds simple, doesn’t it?) Well, the course includes: Principles of Mechanics, Hydromechanics, Pneumatics, Chemistry, Sanitary Chemistry, Sanitary Bacteriology, etc. After completion of that course I should make an expert “Latrine Orderly,” don’t you think?

I can see it now – right next to such trademark slogans as: Body by Fisher, Fixtures by Westinghouse, Design by Schiaparelli, etc., will be my trademark, outstanding in reputation: “Superior Latrines by Lowell!” (Thank you.)

One of the other reasons for my becoming so studious all of a sudden is that I want to get used to a good system of studying which will be most important to me after the war. In view of the strenuous program in my postwar plans, my system of studying must be a fast and efficient one, so that I can get enough sleep during this “Spartan existence.” In case I did not tell you, I plan to attend the Davis Agricultural University. I hope Hap Williams [?] of the Triangle Produce Co. can use a good man for night work; it would be a nice setting, indeed, because the University is about half an hour’s drive from Sacramento. I would appreciate any suggestions and comments that you have in reference to my plans. As far as dissuading me from my intentions, there is no use doing so.

As Lt. Col. Good, my commanding officer, would say: “This is the way it’s got to be, there ain’t no other way!” (unquote) (Ain’t I the one, though?)

“Knowest Thou the Land where the Coconuts grow…..? I have been here for almost a year and it’s been nine months since I ate a coconut. I bet there are a lot of people in this world who would like to have some coconuts and cannot get them. On the other hand there are very many people over here that would like to get some fresh milk and can’t get it. Probably some dairy strikers in L.A. are pouring hundreds of gallons of milk out on the streets; but most probably all surplus milk is being dehydrated – and that doesn’t do us any good, does it?

(How did this last paragraph get into this letter, anyhow?)

I am enclosing negatives of three snapshots; get enough prints made to distribute. I would appreciate your sending me two prints of each. I hope you haven’t forgotten to heed my request for 6-20 films. (Modest, that’s me!)

That’s quite a solution you have arrived at in regards to staying away from the Army Nurse Corps; rather dramatic, isn’t it? However, I am glad you are heeding my advice. (But don’t resort to that drastic measure you mentioned if you can help it, ha, ha!)

I saw the picture “Dragonseed” the other day and I thought it was very good, indeed. I also saw another pretty good picture, “Saratoga Trunk.” How was the performance of “The Merry Widow” this last time? What have you been doing in regards to diversion lately? How was the opera season?

How is Paul? Let me know what he has to say about my postwar plans.

Well, that’s all for today, sister. Give my kindest regards to all.

I remain your loving brother,
Harry

P.S. I hope you have a nice Christmas.

---

In this letter we see that Harry missed his calling — he should have gone into advertising! In addition to information about Fisher in the link above, there is a PBS documentary called Body by Fisher.

Soldiers seem to have had access to the latest movies. Dragon Seed came out in 1944, and according to IMDB, Saratoga Trunk came out in 1945, the year after this letter was written.

In addition to the references to popular culture, Harry throws in a take-off on a quote by Goethe from Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship: “Knowest Thou the Land where the lemon trees bloom…” which he will quote again in a letter almost a year later (see October 13th post).

Perhaps the “drastic measure” Harry refers to is that his sister will be getting married in January 1945.

In the letter we saw in the October 27th post, Harry wrote about his post-war plan to lead a “Spartan existence” as he earned a college degree. He did not mention the idea of studying agriculture at Davis or to go back to the Triangle Produce Co., where he had worked in summers and after high school graduation before joining the army. I always had the sense from Harry that he had no desire to have anything to do with his California relatives’ business. However, at this time, he and his sister were considering all possibilities of making a good living so they would be able to bring their parents to the United States after the war, and to support them once they arrived.

December 14

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Helene in Vienna writing to her children, recent arrivals in San Francisco:

Vienna, 14 December 1939

My little sweeties who aren’t assigned to a particular district!

A nag that clops along in a Clipper letter, folds the ribbon and deserves a rap on the fingers - that’s your mother. I have decided to fight on and bombard you with letters until I get an answer. I don't expect any answers at all, because I haven't asked you any questions, expecting that when I receive something, the questions will no longer apply. You know, I am interested in everything that concerns you and every one of our loved ones. I got a saltwater fish yesterday and took a good look at it to see if, like Polycrates, I could find instead of a ring, a letter from you there. But there was nothing like that. Besides the normal innards, he was mostly fish bones. We ate it anyway, but at least we had something to eat. I would be glad to tell you interesting things, but unfortunately nothing happens in my seclusion that is worth writing about. I see a lot of people who are not there, and even if one or the other might have written to us, I have not yet received any mail. Papa had to pay a fine of 220 [little marks] which we’ve taken out of our travel account. Our friends in Ankara haven’t been in a big hurry to deal with our case, but that doesn’t matter. We have found people interested in buying our piano, but it’s too big for some. The price was not the problem because we are willing to sell it for 1mark/cm – 235marks. Even our bedroom might have some takers but we want to wait till we no longer need it. If it were the summer, I’d have given it up, but winter has no mercy.

Our little neighbor Ludwig visited me yesterday with his mother. Since his mother wanted to chat with me, I gave him a couple of chess pieces to play from the set you left here. After a while he thoughtfully shook his said and said “this is a funny chess game – there’s no white horses and no board to jump around on.”

There’s plenty of room to jump around, but for some reason I don’t feel like it. Maybe I’ll do it when there’s a letter from you. Our kitchen has once again costumed itself as a fairy palace and the walls are sparkling for Christmas. I ignore the splendor because I’d rather go in to our less romantic, but warmer, living room. This is all the easier as I have thoroughly weaned our stomachs from their frivolous exotic cravings. Our stomachs are used to not getting such goodies anymore. Papa has a sour grapes philosophy – “We eat too much anyway!” Maybe he’s right, but it sure would be nice to have something.

Now its noon and I have to get dressed quickly and go into the kitchen. In the case of “Tschindern” – Paul will explain this word to you -- I might even win first place in the Olympics. Also, tell him that I’m upset that I can’t even come up with or make any “cheap” presents for anyone this year.

That's enough nonsense for today. Say hello to everybody. I’m mentally bankrupt which prevents me from writing directly to them very often.

I’m kind of crazy about writing, but I send you an untold number of kisses,

Mutti
Helene

---

Like so often, Helene throws in references that would have meant something to her children, little jokes and wordplay. In the second sentence of the letter, she uses 4 words that sound like “Clipper” when writing about her frustration at not receiving mail - it definitely gets lost in translation! (“Ein Klepper, der in einemfort Clipper-Briefe klappert, das Farbband einkluppt und auf die Finger geklopped verdient, das ist euere Mutter.”) A description of Clipper letters can be found at an earlier post. She likens her desire for letters to the legend of Polycrates.

She uses the word Tschindern, from the Austrian dialect, knowing that her nephew Paul was nearby to translate, bringing him in on the joke. Unfortunately, we don’t have him handy now and I was unable to find a translation.

We see the evolution of Helene’s signature when she writes to her children. In the first few letters from 1939, she signs herself Mutti, which translates to Mom or Mommy. In this letter, she adds her name, Helene. In later letters, she simply signs her name Helen – perhaps acknowledging how mature and distant her children have become, as well as her intention to become an American herself and therefore calling herself by a less European version of her first name.

December 10

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Today we see two letters written six years apart from Helene’s friend Paula. During the war, Paula was one of the few friends who visited Helene while she and Vitali were separated from their children. Paula continued to write until at least 1955. As we saw in the July 11th post, mail from Vienna was still being censored, this time by the Allies. As in earlier posts, we see Paula’s letters become less coherent as the years go by. Her sentences often go on for over 150 words, long even by German standards. My translator tried to find natural breaks to make the letters more comprehensible. 

Vienna, 10 December 1946

My dear dear Helene!

Finally I got the dear letter from you and am very sad that you hurt yourself. I hope everything is okay now. My dear Helene, you write if I have already received the package. I have actually gotten two — one small one from France and nothing else yet except those. It will come in time. It always takes awhile. There was a ship strike and that had an effect. In any case, I thank you so much, but I worry that you scrimp and save and maybe that your children have a hard time. Maybe don’t send any more because I couldn’t stand if you were to suffer because of me, because I know how much you love us and you want to give us everything and I thank your dear children for all the things. Dear Helene, I was at the Kultusgemeinde [Jewish religious community in Vienna] again, and through the newspaper I reported to Herr Krell that maybe we could still find out something. I see Vitali so often in my dreams and I see that I believe that he must come soon. I can’t believe that this splendid person wouldn’t exist anymore. Annemie also talks about him so much and it’s so strange that the child was born in the same month as your husband, and he was always so proud of that — do you remember? Everything that she did was good. Dear Helene, I must tell you one sad thing. I was at the doctor and he told me that if my child doesn’t get better food with more fat in it, she will probably only survive for two years. She is growing so quickly that her heart and her lungs cannot keep up. Can you imagine how I feel at the thought of losing my child? I was in Salzburg again and got various things for the child. God should make it so that she does not get sick on me because it is so cold and we have no coal for the winter. Only 200 kilos for the entire winter and my mother has promised that she would give me some of hers.

Yesterday Frau Else was here to visit us and of course we speak about you and she loves the child, gives the little one a pretty red cap - you know how the little one is always dressed beautifully, so if we can keep it together we’ll make it through this ugly time. Dear Helene, you ask what I am doing and what I am living on. I have two rooms and a closet - the closet I have rented to a Jewish boy. He is 27 years old and was in a concentration camp. He is going to America as soon as it is his turn. So sometimes I cook when he brings things. And then I earn something too. He has plenty of money and he pays well. I have fixed up my room so that’s it’s cozy here. I certainly have lost a lot, but in the living room I have managed to keep it together although some things are still broken. However, you know a woman’s hand can sometimes make things look better, but actually everything that was in the basement was stolen, especially my underwear and my clothes. I am so poor with my things and I don’t really have much to wear anymore, but another time will come. The main thing is that when the little one has it, you know I just live for the child. Dear Helene, Else will also write to you and she will go to her sister’s in America and then I will be alone. Yes, I would love to see you again. It was so nice when we were together, such splendid people as you and Vitali, sometimes I think maybe we all will get together in life again. I cannot believe that I will never see you again and your wonderful children. My dear Helene, you write it is a matter of course that you send me packages. No, my dear, first your children have to work to do that and then I have done everything out of love for you and I am just so sorry that you have gotten so few of the packages of all the good things. Helene, dear Helene, I would love to have a picture of you and from your children. The one I have with her tennis racket, you can’t really see very well and if you had one, we could look at you and your children every day. Annemie is sending you a picture of herself of her soon and a letter. I am curious to see when she finishes it. She has clairvoyance like Vitali did. She often says something that is really exactly right. Now, when your letter has arrived, then she says “Oh I see that is from Tante Helen and Irna” and together and the next day it was really so - both letters were there. So she loves her grandmother very much and everything is about the child for her. She wants to spend a few days in Salzburg at Christmas, she gets to go there because she doesn’t have school because they don’t have coal and the school rooms are too cold for the children to be in so she gets to go visit her much beloved grandmother and then she has better food there, because then she can get milk which is not possible in Vienna. Oh, how good it is that you are not in Vienna anymore dear Helene and that you don’t have to go through this bad time here. As much as I would love to have you here, I wouldn’t want you to starve, that would be terrible, and the extreme cold. Yes, Helene, this year you will spend the first Christmas night with your beloved children. I wish with all my heart that it goes very well, that you have a good day, and won’t be so sad. I know and I understand that you really miss Vitali, but look, maybe there will be a miracle that happens and I cannot believe that this dear and good man will not come soon. Herr Krell is doing everything he can to find out something. Dear Helene, I am going to write you an address now which you can probably do more easily in America than I can from here. Write to the organization Hic [probably HIAS] and then you must give them all the exact information you have - that your husband was alive in March 1945 and he got away from Buchenwald in the long marches. At this time he was entirely healthy and that I got another letter for the child’s birthday and he asked for a certain kind of package which I also sent. Dear Helene, your nephew is not doing so badly with money and maybe he as I have done can write everywhere. And I will try to see if my lawyer can help in some way perhaps. He had someone from Buchenwald staying with him back in the day, a fellow understood that he knew someone named Cohen and that he was there when they marched. Helene, I still have hope and I don’t give up, my dearest.

---

Paula’s post-war address in Vienna was on Invalidenstrasse, less than a half-mile from Helene and Vitali’s old home on Seidlgasse. The package Paula received from France may have been sent by Lucienne Simier, with whom Helene became close at Ravensbrück — see May 8th post. Paula makes it clear that post-war Vienna is not a desirable place to be.

[Received December 8, 1952]

My dearest Helen!

I thank you for your dear letter. You must have already gotten mine. I see that you are also having problems with your apartment and yes my dearest, it’s about time that you get some peace but all difficulties go away and we just have to go through everything, my dear Helene. Just keep the faith and all the difficult stuff will pass by, as soon as Vitali is with you things will be very different. You will have read what has happened in Prague [Probably referring to November 24, 1952 trial] and of course that will have consequences for us too and it is better that Vitali hasn’t come yet because otherwise he might have to go through difficulties here again like in the year 1940, and he realizes that.

Dear good Helen, you must not give up hope because otherwise you just won’t be able to stick it out and believe and it will all turn out okay. Look how bad we are doing and still we say there has to come an end to this time too.

My dear good one, we all wish you a good Christmas celebration and especially a happy new year and stay healthy and believe it that it cannot last all that much longer and then Vitali will come because he also has a hard time in Turkey and he shouldn’t really be there and he is living under an assumed name and he must always have some fear hoping that nobody finds it out. Thank God now he is doing better and as soon as he can he will go away. Believe it. More I cannot write about this because he does not want anyone to really notice him.

Dear Helene this will pass and then dear God does not let his children fall. For today I will end my writing and I will write to you soon again and I would hope that you will get the letter before Christmas. We all send you greetings and kisses and we wish you good health and that you will get some peace.

Your dear friends kiss and greet you. We think of you often.

Have hope that everything will be okay 

Kisses, Paula

---

As we have seen in previous letters, Paula kept Helene’s hopes alive about seeing Vitali again, often asserting that she had been in contact with him. Unfortunately, her optimism was unfounded. In fact, she had seen Vitali in her dreams, but nowhere else.

December 8

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Today’s letter from Helene was written a year later than the ones we’ve seen in the most recent posts – as Helene and Vitali experience their second year apart from their children. Today she writes to Eva, tomorrow she will write to Harry.

Vienna, 8 December 1940

My golden Eva-child!

At this time of the year, it’s a hard decision for Papa to crawl out from under the feathers, especially on a Sunday. My attempt to make this happen: “breakfast is on the table!” But that doesn’t always work either. Only the call of the Valkyries “Hojotoho, the mail is here” - has the desired effect with him. Since I recently in a most vile manner, took advantage of his gullibility as far as it goes, yesterday even though he heard the mail delivery woman’s doorbell ring, he wouldn’t get up out of bed. But he believed that a less interesting piece of mail had arrived, because I replied to his: “bring the mail in” with “no” but only because of the rhyme [herein/in; nein/no], in order to compete with Harry. When I started laughing at letter #10, he realized there must be mail from you and he jumped right out of bed. A second jump was to breakfast, which we then had together with Homeric laughter. I don’t know, Everl, if you have done the right thing in having Harry not read your letters anymore. If I still remember my little son well, he will only with great difficulty be able to give up on the little tidbits that are in there. I thank you especially for the wishes for my birthday and one has to be glad that not all wishes are fulfilled: “you shall get fat, you shall get fat, three times as fat” [a takeoff on the traditional birthday song]. It’s horrible what you wished me there. I certainly agree with the third line of the song: “you should come here, you should come here, very very soon” [another takeoff]. This I wished myself for my birthday this year, and since this wish appears to be more necessary than to increase my girth three times – which the Lord himself would certainly see – I hope that this wish would especially be fulfilled by Him. It is noble the way I am now. I wanted to give some of the birthday kisses to Papa, but he didn’t take them. He wants to pick them up himself, and he says he wants to do that as soon as possible. I have nothing against that.

In order to shorten my wait for the mail, I had decided this week to scrub the floor and wash it. Papa saw a storm cloud on my forehead and he left the house early. I prepared the floor as if it were the only reason for the mail being late, and moaning and groaning it put up with my abuse. In this way, I let it out my displeasure and it was easier to do the work rhythmically. I remembered a refrain from the Lipinskaya repertoire: “I didn’t know I was so strong” When I was about at the last third of the work, my anger and my strength were about done, I made do with the battle cry: “strong muscles, fabulous”. Upon finishing at about 5 in the afternoon (I started at 8 in the morning), in my childish disposition, I hoped to be rewarded for it with the afternoon mail which of course didn’t show up. What should I do? Should I scrub the floor again? That would be stupid. Papa said he wouldn’t be surprised if I acted like a witch: if in the morning, noon and night, he arrived and found me riding my broomstick, which I could not really deny; my uniform was quite sporty, like something you’d wear in Blocksberg. [currently known as Brocken]

Yesterday we visited the girls, although we had actually intended to stay home. But they were so insistent about it that we didn’t stick with our original plan. They met two married couples this week. One couple, whom they know by sight, live in Laimgrubengasse. They could have probably handled that. But with the other one, maybe not. The dear Hansi Niese, who must be clairvoyant, sang:

Yes on the Lahmgruab'n and on the Wieden,
Dulidulijöhö, dulidulijöhö
yes, the taste is very different,
Dulidulijöhö, dulidulijöhö

I did my best to give them a lesson in a sense of community, but some people just don’t get the point of that.

Now I come back to your letter. You wrote that Harry had made the point several times that you were looking very nice these days. Why don’t you see at the post office if you might be able to send a picture? Paul could probably take one of you.

Many kisses,
Helen 

---

Having finally received mail from her beloved children, Helene is in a lighthearted mood. She makes puns and (mis)quotes songs. When relating a story about visiting friends, she includes a verse from a bawdy song.

I don’t think I have a photo of Eva taken at this time. Below is Eva’s yearbook photo which probably would have been taken in the spring of 1940. She looks far more serious and her hair and dress are far more conservative than most of her classmates — perhaps she has begun looking more “American” by the time of this letter.

December 6

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Today we have a letter from Helene in Vienna to her children in San Francisco. They are about to experience the first holiday season separated from one another. 

Vienna, 8, Dec. 1939

My favorite children!

This is the 4th Clipper letter that I am writing to you, still hoping to get a direct answer from you. The eventful week continued. I wrote you in letter #3 that Olga fulfilled my request and sent it as soon as she received my card. The next day I received a second letter from her as an attachment that said it was undeliverable even though the address was exactly right. As a corpus delicti I would have liked to send it to you, but I’m afraid that letters with enclosures are harder to get through the censors. You can probably tell how I feel about this. I don't feel good about asking Olga to take on such expenses a second time, especially because I don't have the ability to pay her back right now and will hardly be able to do that from the allowed 10 reichsmark. So there is nothing left to do but put a smile on your face and wait until the post office decides to deliver the letters that have arrived.

In the meantime, it has become winter in Vienna, with snow, frostbite and other accessories. We don't have much to spend on food. We are lucky that we do have a card that allows us to buy clothing – our neighbors and acquaintances were not issued one – and I have already gotten the sewing materials I need. A hank of embroidery thread, blue cotton wool and a universal-colored darning wool. We can also buy vegetables nearby. I’m not used to going out, as you can maybe tell from the following incident. I go downstairs, intending to go shopping, taking the garbage can to empty at same time so that I only have to go out once and discover I forgot my grocery card. Annoyed at my forgetfulness, I put a hat on – the weather that day was too tempting – to make a little detour. When I wanted to buy something without coupons, I realized that instead of my shopping bag, I had the empty garbage bin hanging over my arm. Papa latest eloquence when we go out is: “Helene, did you remember the garbage pail?” The fact that I am just writing about garbage reflects my mental state and should not surprise you, given my current, exclusive occupation and the milieu in which we live. Papa, who used to bring home something of a spiritual atmosphere from his professional life, no longer throws clients out on his own initiative and for his own private enjoyment, but because he has to and that is less fun for him. Spiritually, we have gone to self-sufficiency, and my letters are a small example! How many minus points would I my jokes get now? Fortunately, I don't feel like it anymore.

Its Christmas in 14 days and I will to the extent possible think about you and hope you have a happy holiday. If you think about how nice it used to be, don’t be sad. You will spend these holidays under completely different circumstances - certainly very nice - and think that we will always be united in thoughts.

Papa is about to leave and I will get him to take this letter to the post office. Warm greetings to all of you. Many, many kisses

Mutti

[written upside down at top of letter:] All the best, Jo!

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As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, my translation efforts began with the typewritten letters, because they were easy to decipher. Roslyn translated the letter we see today in March 2018 and the letter written on December 2, 1939 in November 2019.

Life is becoming increasingly challenging in Vienna. The balmy days of a few days before have given way to the chill of winter. Food and essentials are rationed and there appears no rhyme or reason as to who gets the valuable coupons and ration books. Their focus is on survival and not on the rich intellectual and cultural life they had before the war. Helene is distracted due to the absence of her children, as well as by the unfamiliar and unkind world her beloved Vienna has become. It sounds like Vitali is no longer allowed to see clients in their shop. It was something he enjoyed doing and he brought comfort to many people’s lives – but apparently he also enjoyed not helping people he didn’t like!

Below is a photo of Helene’s daughter Eva — we can imagine Helene sitting in Eva’s place working with the valuable materials they bought with their ration book.

December 5

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Today we have another early letter from Helene in Vienna, at a time when she and Vitali were confident that they would soon be following their children to San Francisco.

Vienna 5 December 1939

My dear children! An eventful week has just passed for me. We got mail 2 days in a row, but unfortunately not from you. Olga N acknowledged my card which I wrote on November 23, yesterday. It of course reached her late as seems obligatory. She told me that she sent a message to you immediately upon receiving it on the 30th of November. The second letter was from Mila and Nervi [?] and we found out that Robert is Ayrshire. He is feeling well and glad to hear the same about you and Paul. I am happy at least to receive good news from all of you in indirectly. And as an unkillable optimist, I believe that one or the other of the letters written will reach you.

Otherwise, it is fairly quiet in Seidlgasse. Yesterday it was a very lovely springlike day. Papa called to invite me to take an evening walk. We walked first through the dark streets and then we came to the Red Tower movie house. There was a shoot ‘em up film being shown and since it was about the construction of the Pacific-Railway, we went in. Harry would be very surprised because we don’t like things about shooting anymore. But at the end, when the train in its current form rushed across the movie screen, my heart stopped for just a few seconds at the thought that my children were just recently sitting in such a monster of steel and iron. Really, a lot of what has happened to you is so problematic for me and my imagination is certainly quite different from what it was.

The truth is that I feel old as the hills and I feel like a hen would feel if she were hatching duck eggs and I am clucking. When the young ones go to the water and happily swim away from her for the first time, she probably can’t believe her eyes in that situation. But I’m an intelligent hen, and even if I do cluck sometimes, I am happy to know that you are with people who are good and noble.

Please kids, be detailed in your reports, write me about each and every thing, and you may imagine that your letters will reach me someday and that I will be informed by letter about everything. I know it’s a lot to ask in such a completely different environment from where you’ve been before, but I think it’s justified.

After 9 in the morning, the whole day is pretty uninteresting to me. There are just so many minutes until the next time I get mail and a lot of what has happened is really not that essential to me.

What I also want to tell you is please don’t get mad if I mention something that is kind of obvious -- don’t forget to write to Olga. First, it is possible for me to get news and besides it is as somebody once said that you only recognize the value of a person except on the worst days. Olga invited me to spend some time with her before we say good-bye to Seidlgasse forever.  I wasn’t wrong about Hedy either. She arrived at my birthday with a piece of butter which her parents had given her so she’d have something to eat on her trip. Touching, isn’t it? In these days, we are doubly thankful for proof that humanity still exists.

For statistical reasons, I am mentioning that this is the 3rd Clipper letter which I have sent. The others don’t count.

To all the dear ones, many, many greetings and to each one of you, thank you very much.

Many, many kisses
Mutti

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After just a few weeks’ separation, Helene realizes that mail is unreliable and asks Eva and Harry to write to friends and relatives in the hope that news about her children will reach her through their letters. Helene mentioned her friend Olga in several Vienna letters, including one in which we learned that her last name was Nussbaum. I did a quick search on Ancestry and found a physician named Olga Nussbaum who was born in Vienna and was a year younger than Helene. She was living in England by 1941, moved to Los Angeles in 1948, and returned to Vienna a few years later. She may be the correct Olga, but who knows?  

Cecil B. DeMille directed a movie that came out in 1939 entitled Union Pacific — perhaps that is the film that Helene and Vitali saw. The trailer would strike terror in anyone considering a cross-country train trip, such as the one Helene’s children had taken just six weeks earlier.

Piecing together my family’s story has not been altogether straightforward. My mother had some letters and papers, her brother had others, and some were originally in their cousin Paul Zerzawy’s possession and ultimately were kept and organized separately. In 2006, I discovered the 1945-1946 letters written by Helene from Istanbul. I could read the few that were in English, and from those I learned more detail about my grandmother’s wartime experience. I made copies for Harry, thinking he’d like to see old letters from his mother, having no idea about the hundreds of letters he had stashed away. After Harry’s death in 2017, I didn’t know which of the letters were worth translating, so my translator friend Roslyn and I began with the typed letters, which were easier to decipher. Thus, Roslyn didn’t translate the first letters Helene wrote by hand to her children until after she had translated most of the later Vienna letters.  

December 4

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Today we have two numbered cards from soldier Paul Zerzawy at a field post in Romania to his family in Brüx, Bohemia. We saw #4 in the November 29th post and #3 in the November 24th post.

#5                               

2. December 1917

Dear Robert!

On certain parts of the front, there has been a ceasefire since yesterday. It is not yet everywhere in our section, but it has stopped here too. Starting tomorrow, my address is:

Machine Gun Course, Captain Hladik,
Fieldpost 211

Your Paul 

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#6                               

In the field, 4. December 17

Dear Robert and dear Grandmother!

Above is my new address. After finishing my service (6-8 weeks), I will probably be moved to a machine gun company. For now, I do not know anything except that there is work to be done from 6am until 8pm. The prior idyllic living is over. You don’t go fishing in the Severs without being punished! Well, it will hopefully work out!

Your Paul

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I assume the sentence about fishing is a variation on an old saying. Paul assures his family that all is comfortable and calm in the letters dated December 2nd and earlier, but he is far less sanguine in today’s correspondence. Like his brother Erich writing from a POW camp in Siberia, Paul tries to sound as upbeat as possible so as not to worry his siblings and grandmother. But it’s not hard to read between the few lines to appreciate that he is nervous about what the future holds.

December 2

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In yesterday’s post, we saw a letter from Helene written in 1939. She has begun typing and numbering her letters. Over the course of a year, she has sent her children at least 61 letters from Vienna to San Francisco.

Clipper #61

Vienna, 2 December 1940

My dear children! Harry expressed joy in his last letter that we had not completely lost our sense of humor. I really lost it in the last few weeks, but I found it again yesterday when the letters that were on their way which had been taking their own sweet time, almost as if to say they were apologizing for having taken so long, did finally arrive. First #11 came from November 13th and that didn’t come as a surprise to me, because I heard from everywhere that letters from America were arriving in series. Since I considered letters #8, 9, and 10 to be lost, my joy about getting #11 was a bit clouded because the rest had gotten lost. I was even happier that I got letter #8 with the next post (it didn’t have a number on it, but it appeared to be a continuation of a letter I already had). My sense of humor that I had found again was in somersaults because I was expecting letters 9 & 10 and I was happy about that. Harry’s quarter report card was bursting with A’s and B’s and that really fills me with colossal maternal pride which I multiply by 2 because I am sure Everl’s report will soon be coming out. Don’t let your little brother tell you any different – go ahead and write when you want, because then nothing more will bother me. There’s not much new to report here. Across from Harry’s old kindergarten, in the house where my hairdresser was, there are large offices and several men who work there have already been into our store but they didn’t find what they were looking for. Just one of them had any luck. In the window display, there was a postcard which he was interested in and he ended up buying the entire stock (10 cards). Recently at breakfast, I noticed that the little pebble I thought I had found in my bread was actually one of my teeth and I had to have a Richmond crown made. I assure you that Dr. Uxi really wasn’t at fault. Have you ever heard of or read about crazy moths? Neither have I, but apparently there is such a thing and I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Papa left his summer suit, which he had still been wearing every day until quite recently, hanging in the front room for a few days. I got his permission to put it away for hibernation. Who can describe my horror when I found out that a hungry moth had eaten holes in it in the middle of November. The hussy had – there is no doubt about it – lost her mind. When it’s more than 27 degrees, the moths lose their minds. There is a certain threshold – the “moth horizon” – another one of those false things you learn in school – that moths cannot do any damage after August and there’s no point in killing the little male moths because those don’t really do any real damage, it’s just the female moths that prefer to lay their eggs on the most beautiful and newest wool items they find, which then serve as food for the moth eggs. Maybe I thought one of these damned female moths was a man and I didn’t kill it and the damned disguised woman, thinking it was the month of May, decided that Father’s suit was a good place to lay eggs and sought it out for that purpose. That she had gone crazy is not just evident from the fact that she was laying eggs in November, but fortunately also from the fact that she had found the oldest piece of clothing, even though it was hanging right next to my new jumper. I just noticed that the typewriter, despite the fact that there was a new ribbon, is not behaving and I am going to stop until Papa can come home and fix the problem.

So, until we write again [word play on the traditional – “auf Wiedersehen”/goodbye].

Helen

The original was not legible so I am sending a copy.

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The postscript on this letter explains why so many of Helene’s letters look like they were carbon copies – indeed they were. Although the original page may have been difficult to read, the strike of the keyboard keys made the words on the copies legible.

We saw a copy of Harry’s Fall 1940 report card from Mission High School in the October 28th post.

The Richmond crown was introduced in 1878 and is still used today.

Although Helene was probably writing many more letters to her children than they were writing to her, they were more prolific than their numbering system made it look. We have seen many letters over the year when Helene begs them to number their letters so she would have an idea of how many were not making it to their destination.

December 1

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Today we see one of the first letters Helene wrote from Vienna after her children had left for America. At this point, Eva and Harry had been in San Francisco for about six weeks. 18-year old Eva was living with Helene’s cousin Bertha and her husband George Schiller; 15-year old Harry was with Helene’s cousin’s daughter Hilda and her husband Nathan Firestone. On the front page, she writes in German to her children, and on the back in English to the Firestones. Because the Schillers and Firestones did not live in the same neighborhood, Eva and Harry attended different high schools.

Vienna, Dec 1, 1939

My dear children, I am going to ignore the fact that I haven’t gotten any letters and I am going to write anyway, hoping that one letter or the other will reach its intended goal. The most important thing this week: Beppo wrote that we should not think that he is just sitting there with his hands in his lap. He’s doing everything he can and is asking just that we have a little bit of patience. Fortune’s brother is not allowed to work at all. As soon as I know more details, I will let you know. You know Vitali only by name, right? There’s nothing new here. Except for Jo and Paula, I don’t really see anybody because of the ... blackouts. We spend the evening writing or playing Tric-Trac. In our thoughts we are always with you, every minute. What time is it in America, and we are imagining: “I wonder what the kids are doing now.” We would love to know how you’re doing and if you have gotten used to it and how you spend your time. Eventually the post will come and we will no longer have this insecurity. Unfortunately, I cannot write anything more right now. Otherwise, the letter will be too heavy.

Greetings and kisses to all the dear ones from us.

Many many kisses
Mutti

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Vienna, Dec 1, 1939

Dear Hilda and dear Nathan,

Nearly 5 weeks Harry is in your home and I hope you will not have much trouble with him. In my thoughts I am in your circle, I listen to your talks, doing my works mechanical and counting the days which we are obliged to be here. With all my heart I wish to know how you are and I hope the children will bring life in your house, but perhaps it is that which you don’t want, perhaps you are wanting silence. Please in this case excuse them. Youth is aloud and vivid, but they are intelligent enough to respect your customs and will surely being endeavored not to disturb you so much. Excuse my bad English. It is very difficult for me to concentrate and to express my thoughts in a language which I can use no practice.

Please give my best greetings and wishes to all our relatives.

In love and gratitude I am

yours truly
Helen

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This is one of the few letters from 1939-1941 that Helene wrote by hand. Soon she would begin typing her letters, in the hope that they would be more legible for the censors and therefore might make it to their destination. She signs her letter “Mutti” (“Mom”). In most future letters to her children, she signs her name. I think Helene’s question about knowing Vitali by name is to let Eva and Harry know how hard he is working to get them to America – how “vitally” he is working on their behalf.

In the letter to Hilda on the back, Helene acknowledges that her English isn’t great, attributing it to the stressful situation and lack of practice. By the time she wrote from Istanbul in 1946, she was far more fluent. As I wrote in an early post, I believe that she worked on improving her English while at Ravensbrück.

November 10

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Today’s letter is from Helene in Vienna to her children in San Francisco.

Vienna, 10 November 1940

My dear children!

I can confirm that I received your letter #7 from October 24; it’s taking a little longer now. Everl is grumbling because the two hours of work on Sunday is divided up in such a clumsy way. Of course, like everything else, this has its good and bad sides. On a Sunday like that you can read, you can get things organized, and then you can be sure that if your room is inspected you won’t be embarrassed. You can do your correspondence; you can practice the piano. Of course, it would be nice if you could go out and chat a little bit. However, you cannot expect the patients as long as they’re still alive to be made to sleep early in the morning. It is always better to be a nurse than a patient.

Harry’s angry verse is taking on rather a scary form now; I like his prose better and it does not contain any Napa danger. What is making my heart beat faster is your terrible grammar and the incorrect spelling that you use. I assume that you’re learning English as fast as you’re forgetting German. Your German used to be good, so I’m happy you’re learning English. My sadism is so great that I imagine that I am seeing the faces of Professor Locker and Eva’s German professor as I read your letters.

Eva mentioned a phosphorescent substance that she uses to improve her complexion. Do you still have those damned mixed pickles? [pimples] You could really get rid of these childhood maladies. Hopefully the headaches have disappeared? I deliberately never asked because Dr. Ornstein strictly forbade me to ask: “Eva, how’s your head?” For a while, I really blamed myself for being the source of your headaches, because they say “fear begets fear.” Please do not as you usually do ignore this question, please answer me truthfully.  

Harry: tsk tsk, tsk – on the other hand is giving me a headache. In almost every letter I don’t manage to figure out if “Tulli” is an American Indian or “habtschi” in Chinese or a Götz quotation in Japanese. I wanted to ask a few times but then I always forgot. I have decided that it must be American Indian and it seems to be one of the things that impressed you at Lake Tahoe. In any case, I am horrified at the thought that if this continues, I will not understand what my own flesh and blood are writing to me.

Since winter has already arrived (but the weather is very nice), Papa has outfitted me like an Eskimo. In the house, I wear warm pants, but I can’t say that it’s all quiet on the Western Front because Papa has spent the rest of my points on two vests, one of which has arms, and one of which is sleeveless.

Your father just came home and he told me with a big smile, showing me the full shopping bag, that he has spent all of his money on food. He was especially happy that he was able to use all of the week’s bread cards on Knäcke [crispbread]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crispbread  You probably want to know what that is? Well, I call them “Aryan matzo”. They taste the same, like nothing at all, but they’re smaller and more burnt. You can eat them for hours without being hungry, but also without getting full. They are great as accompaniment music to Tric-Trac and they make you feel like you are closer to the ruminants. Because of our eastern citizenship, I feel closer to a ship of the desert than to the cows here at home.

That’s all for today and Kisses
Helen

How do you like my new signature? [referring to ink blot]

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Helene tries to help Eva come to terms with her split shift on Sundays. We learned about Eva’s Sunday hours in the October 29 and October 30 posts.

Like his mother, Harry has been sprinkling words from a variety of languages in his letters. Helene is trying to make sense of them, but unfortunately doesn’t have access to the internet.

Helene makes light of their meager food and clothing rations while filling today’s letter with puns and word play. For example, she mentions Eva’s “mixed pickles.” The word for “pimple” in German is Pickel. She makes a pun about spelling errors and about west/vest. In the September 6 post, there is an explanation of the “Götz quotation.”

October 29

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Today we have the companion letter to the letter to Harry we saw yesterday; this one is from Helene in Vienna to her 19-year-old daughter Eva in San Francisco.

Clipper 57a                             Vienna, 29 October 1940

My dear Eva-child, I have been spoiled by how quickly the last letters have reached us and so the interval between the last one and today is starting to feel a bit long. Certainly a letter will arrive tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, or the day after that and I will once again find out a little bit about your life. You have a lot to do nowadays my little bunny? A few weeks ago, Papa ran into your teacher Gina who asked all about you. I visited her after that and she was very interested when I described your institute of higher learning. I am supposed to say hello to you from her and her sister. She told me that your card from Istanbul was the last time she heard from you directly. I think a letter from you would make her very happy, especially if you were to tell her about your school. She inquired about how Harry’s progress in just as much detail. She is a fine and good person and there aren’t many like her. Yesterday I visited the old seamstress across from us, the grandmother of your former schoolmate Trude Koch. She told me that her granddaughter has also been away from Vienna for a year now. I sought her out because I wanted to ask if she could rent a room or even just a closet to an old lady who has been living in the home of Frau Clara Friedman up until now. Unfortunately, her apartment is quite full and I could not help the good woman. I also knocked on the door but there was no answer.

On Sunday the old Zentner couple was here to visit us. Unbelievable how agile the old gentleman is and he decided to go straight up to the 4th floor to visit us and even the darkness didn’t seem to bother him much. They have good news about their children and they are looking forward to the time when their number is up to emigrate. Frau Jeck had everything ready for her departure, but apparently she missed the proper date and is still here.

We have snow for the first time today. That’s always a reason for serious observations. How strange that the winter months particularly increase my anxiety for you and my wish to be reunited with you even greater. It’s probably because we didn’t used to be apart from each other so much in the winter. The last ski trip to Radstätter-Tauern and the few days we spent in Kaumberg were just about the only time we hadn’t spent together during the winter months. In the summer it just seemed easier. But don’t think I’m not happy that you’re over there.

I wrote to Lisette last week and asked that she take care of our issues. If it’s still possible, I ask? Olga’s brother was here yesterday. He gave me some letters to read and they weren’t as rosy as before either. It’s pretty lousy in all of Europe. “America, you’ve got it better!”

I read with regret and sympathy that you wanted to go out and spend some time with Tillie but you were unable to do so because of your work. Don’t you have a fixed day of the week that’s free? And Sunday, don’t you even have Sunday free? You were in Mill Valley with Paul last time. Do you spend a lot of time together? In any case, the many invitations that you get together do manage to keep family contact alive.

Papa just told me that he’s ready to leave and for him it is an unwritten law that he only mails things on Friday. Well, apparently I drove my little typewriter workhorse for no reason because the letter is not going to be sent until the 1st anyway.

Kisses, kisses, and more kisses,
Helen

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Note: October 29, 1940 fell on a Tuesday

It’s lovely to see how fondly my mother’s teacher remembered her. Perhaps Gina is Gina Mayer, whose inscription we saw in Eva’s Poesiealbum in the May 18 post.

We may have seen photos of Eva and Paul in Mill Valley in the February 7 post. Despite her sorrow at their separation, it must have lightened Helene’s heart to know that her children regularly saw their older cousin Paul and that other family members welcomed them into their homes..

We hear that people continue to leave Vienna, to plan to leave, or are prevented from leaving. Money is so scarce that finding a spare closet to call home was a luxury.

I have always imagined that this photo of Eva was taken on a ski trip – she’s dressed warmly, drinking a hot beverage, and is wearing sturdy walking shoes. Perhaps this is one of the rare separations Helene mentions.

October 24

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Helene says that she sent this letter to her children with the one we saw on October 18.

Clipper #56                                                     Vienna, 24 October 1940

My dear children! With letter #55a, Papa had to pay extra postage but now that it’s written I’m going to include it with this one. In the meantime, your letter #5 of October 10th has arrived. It took only 12 days to get here. That’s fabulous! Isn’t it? So, Everl has already found out that this profession of nursing also has its downside. When she wrote to me her decision to become a nurse, I only saw that but then I was very surprised by the description you provided up to now of your exemplary institution. I hope, however, that your enthusiasm will last, despite the difficult and sometimes unpleasant work. Your description of the ball was so vivid that I felt like I’d been there. Everl said that she danced with an Austrian. Did she meet that doctor from Vienna, or is this a friendship that has come about in San Francisco?

Harry asked quite a few questions which I will answer in the next letter – today I will not have enough time or room for that. I will just say that we are very happy in every way with our sub-tenants. Papa just came home with an “I’m hungry” and I’m going to see what I can do about that, so I’m going to interrupt my writing. After I have solved the stomach question, if I still have time I will continue.

Now I’ve satisfied the guts and I am continuing my report with the feeling the wolf in the fairy tale must have felt when he had eaten the seven little kids and after the grandmother’s operation. You remember this beautiful little story in which the wise grandmother freed the hostages and in their place she sewed 7 rocks into the stomach.

On Seidlgasse, an earth-shattering move will take place. Our Angelo Zamini, who was the most angelic creature in the third district and the most representative stomach of the area, is going to very soon show all this off in a lovely little corner restaurant on Löwengasse. We don’t know if he had a fight with somebody or if the wounds were the problem, but somebody apparently hit him (according to Roswaenge), which worries me. My eyes will weep because they have to look around for another pasture.

I have sent your greetings on to Paula, Jo and Becks and the Stapplers. As undeliverable I must send back those to the Weidlich (tumor), the Fahnenjunker (angina pectoris) and “Herzerl” (delirium tremens) and in the loyal entourage of his neighbors, the tobaccanist (paranoia). Everl, could you maybe ask at the hospital? I’d like to be able to get a vaccination to protect me against various things: hunger, upset, and poverty (the last one just in case). I think I’m immune to everything else.

That’s enough for today. I do need to keep something back for the next letter.

With many kisses
Helen

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It’s impossible for us to know what it was about letter #55a that made it more expensive. It was just one page – perhaps Helene sent something in the envelope?

It is so touching to read how Eva in her letters tried to make sure that her parents felt like they were not missing out on the lives of their children. She describes her studies and work in the hospital – the good and the bad – as well as social activities and the people she was meeting. She sends greetings to friends and neighbors, including Paula whose post-war letters caused Helene such hope and consternation. In the list of ungreeted people, Helene may be listing professions rather than names.

I briefly tried to find something on Angelo Zamini, but came up empty-handed. Nothing in the 1939 Viennese directory or newspapers. I assume he must have run a restaurant or pub near their apartment on Seidlgasse. Löwengasse was just a few blocks away and currently there are at least two pizzerias – perhaps one of those was the same location as his new restaurant.

October 21

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Today we have two letters from October of 1917 sent from 19-year old POW Erich Zerzawy in eastern Siberia to his grandmother, brother Robert, and sister Kätherl in Brüx, Bohemia.

14./X.17.

My dear ones!

I just received Kätherl’s card from July 22nd. You can believe that it doesn’t exactly put my worries to rest about your health, when Kätherl does something different like getting pulmonary epicitis [perhaps catarrh of the lungs?] again. I am not entirely satisfied with Robert either. Erich would set a good example for you, because the fellow enjoys the best health. But you may be assured that I’d rather lie around in the chaise longue with you. So, get better. With a thousand kisses, especially for Grandma who doesn’t write to me at all anymore,

Your Erich

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Beresowka 21/X.17

My dear ones!

Recently, I have at least heard some news from Brüx, although it’s been rather spare. But I hear so little from Papa; I know that Paul is forbidden to write to me directly, so you’ll have to let me know how he is doing. It is my most sincere wish that he is doing fine.

Robert’s new medical exam also does not make me very happy. Because if they keep him, what happens then at home? How do you think the September physical exams turned out? I found out about it in fact from a card that I got from the Rosner family on August 1st.

I regret that I cannot send my thanks personally for the very nice card, but you know how it is. But I do thank them very much, and let me do it through you. You can imagine how much it makes us happy here when we find out that old acquaintances remember us. Franzl Reh in Neumarkt — please greet him for me, Robert — he is the only one of my colleagues who has written to me. Here where I am nothing has changed, everything is just as it was, only that the season is changing. We now already have very cold days and it’s also snowing. In fact, the winter is beginning. We now will be shut in again for a few months, vegetating in the bad air in the barracks until the nice days come again and we can go outside without fear of freezing to death. Then it will be summer again, winter, and I just don’t know how long it’s going to take. Many people have given up hope of this ending anytime soon, me too. No matter how much one used to cling to every glimmer of hope and cherish the firm belief that it would be over, now we are pretty much convinced of the opposite. Maybe a new upswing will come, but nobody really knows if that will actually lead to peace. Be that as it may, eventually the time will come where etc., but I wonder if everyone will be fortunate enough to come home? So many have already really lost hope, and who knows what the others will be doing if some change in our situation does not happen soon.

Please greet everybody from me. Sincere kisses a thousand times.

Your
Erich

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I have 31 letters written by Erich between 1916-1918. The card from July 14 is the only one written while serving in the army, all of the rest sent as Red Cross correspondence from the POW camp in Beresowka. The letter dated October 21 is the only actual letter – all the rest are postcards.

There were 5 Zerzawy siblings: Paul, Klara, Erich, and Robert were born to Julius Zerzawy and Helene’s eldest sister Ida. After Ida’s death, Julius married her younger sister Mathilde and young Käthe/Kätherl was the product of that marriage. Mathilda died in 1910 and Klara died in 1916. At the time of this correspondence, Julius and Paul were soldiers and not able to correspond directly with Erich. Robert had recently turned 18 and might find himself drafted at any time, leaving sister Kätherl and their grandmother alone and with few resources. Despite his own dire situation, Erich is has more concern for his family’s welfare than his own.

Although both the letter and postcard bear censorship markings, Erich apparently felt more comfortable writing about his own uncomfortable situation in the letter – perhaps knowing that the envelope kept the contents away from prying, but unofficial, eyes? This is the first time a sense of hopelessness has found its way into his correspondence.

October 20

Link to Family Tree to understand family relationships.

Today we see a newsletter from October of 1962. This 8-page bulletin was for written by and for survivors of Ravensbrück. I was surprised when I first came across this document among Helene’s belongings – I had never imagined that there might be an alumni newsletter for former concentration camp prisoners. And yet, it makes perfect sense – who else could understand and identify with their experiences? Today, it would be a Facebook group – in fact, in preparing today’s post, I found that there is a group with that name! The newsletter continues to be published.

Unsurprisingly, Helene was traumatized by her time in Ravensbrück, and it haunted her for the rest of her life. She referred to her experiences in some of her letters from Istanbul in 1945-1946 and in some of her memoirs. She felt close to women who shared her experience, continuing her correspondence with some of them at least into the early 1960s. There is a letter from Helene to Lucienne Simier and one from Lucienne to Harry, and a poem dedicated to Helene from Gemma La Guardia Gluck, and artwork by Jeanne Letourneau.

The human need for connection and communication is incredibly strong, and people will do everything they can to reach out to loved ones, especially in the darkest of times. As we have seen, family members found ways to contact their loved ones from a Siberian POW camp during World War I, from Vienna to the U.S. while the countries were at war, between the death camps. Nothing could quell their quest for contact.