June 11

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Postcards

Today’s postcard from June 11, 1972 got me thinking about vacation postcards in general, and then about the importance of postcards in the first half of the 20th Century. Below are several postcards written by my mother, my cousins, and me from summer vacations in 1966, 1969 and 1972. It’s lovely that Helene saved and valued these notes.

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I have quite a few postcards in my family papers, many dating from the early 20th Century. Some are generic postcards of a town or landmark. But there are also many that are postcards with photos of family members – either professional studio portraits or amateur shots. The latter were known as “Real photo postcards” (RPPC) if they were made using a special camera and paper beginning in the early 1900s. I’m not sure whether that’s the case for the photos in my possession.

Below is a postcard of the Stubenring in Vienna on which my grandmother drew an arrow and pointed to her shop – the stationery shop where she sold paper goods and repaired fountain pens, and in the 1930s where Vitali had his metaphysical practice.

Below is a photo postcard from a class trip to Italy. Harry is in the front row, third from the right.

June 10

Helene sends the following brief note to let her children Eva and Harry know they are never out of her thoughts.

 Vienna, 10 June 1941

My dear children! This week also has passed by without having received any letters from you. Papa is working like crazy to arrange our departure and all of our matters more quickly. You will have no idea of the difficulties which we have had to overcome. Yes, it is no pleasure to travel during time of war. The pleasure will not come until we can take you into our arms again. We had such a stressful day yesterday that I have very little time for writing today and I am also very tired. The purpose of the few lines today is just to allow for no interruption in our correspondence and to let you know that we are doing well. As far as our matters are concerned, nothing has changed since the last letter. It is possible that there will be more to report in the next few days.

For today, just lots and lots of kisses to you and all the loved ones

Helen

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As Helene writes this letter, Harry is preparing to graduate from Washington High School

June 9

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

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

My dear good Helene,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From your old Marga

Please send me a picture of the children.

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

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A Little bit of sleuthing — a lot of information!

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

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

June 8

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Today we have excerpts from a letter from soldier Harry Lowell who is in training at Fort Francis E. Warren in Wyoming for the Quartermaster Corps to his sister Eva Lowell who is finishing nursing school in San Francisco.

June 8, 1943

Dear Sister,

Well, don’t say it. My locker is stacked with unanswered mail; the reason for that may be attributed to laziness, study, athletics, KP, and other very good excuses.

I have finished my basic training and am attending school for automotive anatomy and motor operations. (How’s your generator?) They really cram stuff into us in a hurry; I have to do some studying every night. I like it very much despite my dislike for the Quartermaster Corps of which motor maintenance & operations is the best branch, I think. Still I would rather be in the infantry.

I have been very busy for the last few weeks; I am on the company boxing team and on the regimental track team which events keep me rather occupied. (In case you don’t know anything about the Army, a regiment consists of twelve companies and the whole Fort has six regiments.) There’ll be a track meet on the sixteenth amongst all the regiments of the post. The sixteenth is the 158th (or so) anniversary of the Quartermaster Corps. Last Sunday there was an inter-regimental contest to select the good men for the regimental team. I am a good man, he he. I’ll be running the mile again; but this time I have a little more practice and I am somewhat more used to the high altitude than I was before….

I guess by now you have moved from the diaper ward to a drier climate. How are you getting along? When are you going to graduate? Do you need money? I do, too.

Today started out with warm sunshine and a June atmosphere; about three in the afternoon, it began to hail like heck. We may expect some snow yet; this will give you an idea of the climate.

It would be awful punishment for me if I were to be stationed here for a while.

In this new company, student cooks prepare our meals. We are their guinea pigs, so to speak. They fed us meatballs today that were so well done that they would have served the purpose of fatally wounding someone if they were used in sling shots. We used to get excellent meals in Co C; but Co F serves us regular slop.

On Sundays a bunch of fellows & I usually go to Cheyenne’s “Hotel” and enjoy civilian steak banquets. It’s good to wipe your mouth on a napkin and eat at leisure!…

How’s everyone in S.F.? What’s the dirt, sister?

As to that picture, all the fellows agreed that it was a good one. You should have seen the other one. You know, that old dopey look.

I think I’d better close now; I gotta go to bed.

 Harry

P.S. In case you have a recent picture, send me one.
P.P.S. Is there anything you want from Wyoming? (Souvenirs, etc.)
P.P.S.S. Note new address; Co F, 1st QMTR

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In my June 2 post, we saw that Harry’s cousin Erich Zerzawy who died as a WWI prisoner of war, seems to want nothing better than the life of a soldier for his younger brother Robert. Harry is enthusiastic about the life of an infantryman, unhappy that he’s been relegated to the Quartermaster Corps. Erich and Harry were different generations, never met, served in different wars and armies, and yet they have the same attitude. I find this very hard to understand, but I am not a teenage boy.

I assume the portrait Harry mentions is the photo he sent to Eva for her birthday. See May 3 post.

June 7

Today we have a letter from Helene to her nephew Paul Zerzawy in San Francisco.

Vienna 7 June 1940

Dear Paul!

You should not without punishment have given me your private address. I will be using it an awful lot, but you will be disappointed because the content of my letters will not please you. I knew that you were able to evaluate my confused letters correctly, and that the children would understand my letters only literally and not read too much into them. Their departure was delayed far too long for me to have no real reason to believe that their young souls might have been damaged by this. There are experiences that one cannot erase from one’s memory. Sometimes they slip into a secret compartment of the brain and then something makes them reappear. The longer the unpleasant memories stay in the brain safe, the better it is for the young minds. So if my letters are perceived and understood by the children in the way that you have described to me, my intention to leave them carefree has been completely successful. As far as your guilty conscience, you should just take some valerian and don’t take things so hard. You have already known about our attitude and our tribulations of life for a while. I went through the school of hard knocks, so I sort of take things quietly the way they come. Now you should not overemphasize the value of things any more than you can that of people. What does it matter when we’ve had to sell our bedroom? We can sleep just as well on a field bed that’s been lent to us and our digestion will not suffer if we no longer have a dining room. I would however have wished that we could have brought our grand piano. Since you three aren’t using it anymore, it sort of turned my former joy into the opposite, but that’s just a matter of mood and one should not be caught up in these waves. My desire to see you again is so vehement that I am determined that our departure will happen soon even though there is not even the slightest reason to think so. Father has his “one gets everything in life which he wishes for intensely.” He always insists that that’s the way it is, even though it doesn’t necessarily happen at the time you want. Whenever that time will happen, it will certainly make me happy. You should not worry about our pecuniary situation. Certainly, neither Vitali nor I have any way of earning any money, but the little that we need to live on we are managing to come up with by selling off the last few items we have in the business and the larger expenses such as taxes and interest are going to be taken care of by selling our furniture. I have already written you once that the Druseidt [?] have found someone to buy their business. Help, such as material help from relatives, I would only want to accept in the most desperate of situations - maybe to help us emigrate, but who knows when that will be. Tomorrow there are new regulations for post with neutral foreign countries. Illegible letters will not be sent so they should be written on a typewriter wherever possible and not be longer than four pages.

I am glad that you are doing well and that you and the children are in such contact. I couldn’t have imagined that in my wildest dreams. Nor could I imagine that you would have gotten used to it so quickly. Please write as soon as you can and think about the fact that the letters have to go a long way and often arrive late and sometimes not at all. 14 days without mail I’ve had just now again. A long time when one is as hungry for news as I am.

See you Paul and prove that you are thinking of us by writing a few letters even if it’s just something you add to the children’s letters.

In love that knows no bounds

Your
Helen

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Helene’s first few lines are interesting when considering Harry’s illustrated newsletter from 1939 that was posted yesterday. Harry’s tone was light and hopeful, an excited teenager enjoying the adventure and possibility of being in a new place. Helene makes clear that she and Vitali have done everything they could to shield their children from the worst of her worries. I don’t know how successful she was, but the Harry and Eva at least put up a brave face in their letters to her.

This letter was written in 1940 and already they have little way of making money. They are selling their furniture and hoping to leave for America soon. It’s hard to imagine what they lived on in Vienna for the next three and a half years. It must have been such a relief to Helene that her nephew Paul was in San Francisco and could keep an eye on his young cousins.

June 6

Today we have a treasure from Harry, an “Illustrated News Monthly” dated June 7, 1939 from Istanbul. Helene mentions receiving one of his illustrated letters in her letter of March 8 1940. This is the only example I have of these letters. Perhaps inspired by his mother’s love of language, her father’s newspaper, and his own cartooning ability, it seems that Harry sent these to relatives on a somewhat regular basis.

Harry labels this as the “New York Edition” so he must have sent it to Helene’s nephew’s Paul Zerzawy who had arrived in the U.S. in April of 1939 and was trying to find work and make a life in New York.

Harry packs in a huge amount of information and sense of place in two brief pages. 15-year old Harry includes 2 self-portraits showing how much he’s changed in a few short months, growing both leaner (from walking constantly around Istanbul) and taller. He gives a travelogue including “photos” of the sights and teaches some Turkish language. His humor and sense of fun shine throughout. 

Below are three photos taken several months apart. The first is his first Turkish passport photo to enter Istanbul, I believe the second is his passport photo from the summer, August and the third was taken on board the S.S. Rex in October 1939 as he and Eva made their way to the U.S.

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June 5

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Today we have a letter from soldier Harry Lowell to his sister Eva Goldsmith in San Francisco.

 Philippines
June 3, 1945

Dear Sis,

I am writing this letter from a little restaurant near town. I have chosen this spot because I don’t want to be disturbed or influenced by the monotony of my usual army environment. Here it goes – a letter from your escapist brother. 

First of all I’d better apologize again for my laxness. To come to think of it, I haven’t even congratulated you on your marriage and, believe me, I have begun to consider myself an inconsiderate, heartless scoundrel of the highest caliber. On May 5 I suddenly remembered your birthday but could do nothing about it, save be with you in thought. I am trying to convince you that I have not forgotten you or anybody else even if I hadn’t written for some time. In my spare time I turn philosopher and as such cannot force myself to sit down and write letters. I appeal to your good heart again and ask your forgiveness. Granted? Thank you. (I don’t imagine your husband has a high opinion of me; I leave it to you to tell him that I am not as bad as I seem to be – oh yeah?) So much for that.

I guess you know how I felt when I received Tillie’s telegram; from it I perceived that all was well. I thought so until I found out from one of your letters that all wasn’t as well as it should be. I trust that all is well now. My mind is full of plans for the future and I can hardly wait for the day of our reunion. It has been a long time. 

I know you are doing all you can and I feel helpless over here. As far as ever getting a furlough is concerned, I may as well forget all about it. No way. Another close friend of mine in my unit applied for an emergency leave because his mother had been given only a few months to live. After one month of red tape he received a negative reply signed by some second lieutenant in supreme headquarters. You can see how easy it is to get home; count me out for another two years. (For your information, I have only 54 points as of today.) I have submitted myself to fate. C’est la guerre et c’est la vie!

Well, I might as well tell you about our odyssey. We left New Guinea in an overloaded Liberty and roamed the sea for over thirty days; the journey was spiced with rumors, plenty of cussing, and poker games.

I have seen quite a bit of Manila and found nothing but debris; from the looks of the ruins, Manila must have been a pretty city at one time. Many towns have been burnt to the ground; passing through these places the first time I felt a feeling of guilt for being a member of civilization that has permitted wars to cause such destruction. America is lucky not to feel the immediate blows of war. 

I hope the world will wake up this time and prevent wars in the future. Some people say that wars cannot be prevented and that there will always be wars (according to the Bible). I still maintain that wars can be prevented; that is our problem from now on. (I am still the unshakeable idealist.) I haven’t read any of your opinions on the subject in your letters lately. I’d better cut short my idealistic doubletalk and proceed with the description of my travels. Passing through a lot of towns our little convoy was greeted by all junior members of the population. Their battle cry was “Victory, Joe”; variations of that battle cry are: “H’llo Joe, gimme a cigarette; Victory Joe, chewing gum, chocolate;” etc. Some of these kids are quite cute and I always grow softhearted and play Santa Claus giving my candy rations away.….

I am getting my fill of bananas, pineapples, mangoes, and other tropical fruit which are not known in the states. In spite of all these tropical delicacies, I’d still settle for a T-bone steak and a baked potato (and apple pie, maybe).

Incidentally, how has married life affected your cooking? Don’t be surprised if I barge in on you one of these years and I won’t want to be disappointed then. You know my preferences; and don’t forget that gallon of milk!

Well old girl, that is enough for today. Give my best regards to all and announce to everybody that I have emerged from my epistolary hibernation and that I will start a new season of vigorous correspondence. Amen.

Love,
Harry

P.S. Tell your spouse that I think, he should have taken me in consideration before he married you. Or does he believe in taking the bad with the good?

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A lot has happened in 1945 while Harry was serving in the South Pacific. His sister got married on his birthday in January. A few months later, they learned that their mother had been released from Ravensbrück and was now in Istanbul and needed financial assistance to join her family in California. In the May 17 post, we saw that Harry gave Eva power of attorney and access to money to help. He feels powerless so far away and sees no likelihood of getting home soon. He mentions having 54 points. According to an article on the National WWII Museum in New Orleans website, a soldier needed 85 points to be allowed to return home.

Harry describes his journey from New Guinea to the Philippines on a Liberty Ship. One of the last remaining Liberty Ships, the Jeremiah O’Brien, is docked at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco.

As I read Harry’s description of the ruins of Manila, I wonder how much he was thinking of how his own home in Vienna had been affected by the war. No wonder he was so empathetic.

June 4

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This letter to Helene’s nephew Paul Zerzawy must have been sent with the letter we saw yesterday that she wrote to her children. They both have the same Clipper number 103. She tells much of the same story but in a different tone. As Helene sees the end in sight and a family reunion in San Francisco seems likely and imminent, she takes a “farewell tour” of her beloved Vienna. Click on the links below to join her on the tour.

Vienna, 3 June 1941

Dear Paul! Thank you, a thousand thanks for your telegram of May 31. You should not believe that I have been writing alarm letters to you when something doesn’t go the way I want. You know me better than that. But when I wrote you that letter which you answered with the cable, our situation was worse than bad and the information that we had gotten from the religious community and from Prinz Eugenstrasse [likely the Turkish Embassy which is currently at Prinz Eugen Strasse 40] were more than hopeless. In the meantime, you will have received my letter from May 13 in which I was so joyous and which I told you there had been an amazing turn in our situation, as far as our possibility of leaving goes. That the American consulate had broken its silence and had let us know that everything was all right and mention that our matter is proceeding normally. It is happening too slowly for us which is understandable, but I believe that it is the last phase of our obstacle course but we will win the derby.

Yesterday, we began making visits to say good-bye. We went to the Lusthaus and went down the Hauptallee, which still has floral candles as decoration. We walked by foot to the Praterstern. We went down the middle of the street since we wanted to have the most incomparably beautiful view of the Tegetthoff monument in front of us and we had the view of the Lusthaus behind us and from time to time I turned around to get the panoramic effect. Individual cars containing Firmling [Catholic children becoming confirmed] were decorated with flowers were going to the Lusthaus, but otherwise it was just the usual hustle and bustle that you find on Pentecost Monday. I said I really wanted to take a trip on the Riesenrad [ferris wheel] and see the Prater and the Viennese surroundings in this way. I remembered enjoying the sight with you for the first time. I went to the places that my children enjoyed so much before. I said good-bye to the Prater, and I also want to see Schönbrunn, and Kahlenberg  and Cobenzl still remain, and I plan to spend next Sunday doing that. The rest of the time is busy with all sorts of preparations. It takes an awful lot of time and nerve. There was an interruption caused by the Pentecost holidays and hopefully we will make up for that and we hope that the errands we need to do as far as the paperwork that will come from Berlin - we hope that will arrive. Then it’s a matter of getting up on our feet and running, flying. The days are getting longer and one can convince oneself that everything is going more quickly and more easily. This week there is a very important matter to take care of, but I will tell you more about that when I’ve got the problem solved.

I no longer ask how you’re doing, what you’re doing or what you hear from Robert. For one thing I never get any answer from you and for another I hope to get these answers myself in person, as Vitali has advised me when I was so long without any news and kept whining.

Farewell Paul, and do expect to receive us soon.

My greetings to the Zentners, Schillers, Firestones, and to Erwin Fulda, for whom I’ve only made trouble so far, even though all that he knows about me is that I exist.

My dearest hugs to you

Helen

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June 3

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Vienna, 3 June 1941  

My dear children!

Since you have been away from us, two-day holidays are a thorn in my eye. Even though I can’t say that they are stealing your letters from me, they are certainly guilty of making them quite delayed.

Yesterday my anxiety drove me to the pleasures of the Prater. As long as one looked up at the sky, it was a lovely view, but I could see ancestors, grandmother, mother and child, not dressed, but on the meadow. The Wurstl prater [amusement park part of Prater park] has changed its appearance. Several new places of merriment have been constructed, which I really wasn’t all that interested in. I was only interested in those carousels that used to be so much fun for you. At the Eisvogel [restaurant in the Prater], I wanted to buy a balloon to give it to a child in our building, but they wanted 4 RM. That was too much for me and I suppressed my maternal instincts. Yes, if it had been for Eva-child or Harry-boy I would have gone for it. Papa invited me to go to a restaurant, the one where we had eaten on the last Pentecost holiday. But I decided I didn’t want to, I said no, and we went home.

Today Papa is busy trying to give our matter a nudge, but I don’t really expect any success with this because we can’t do anything of any real meaning since we have some documents that are not here yet from Berlin. It seems like every day there’s a new edict which changes all of the preparations we’d made before. Yesterday, they said that we could take 50kg/person into the train compartment, today they say it’s 30kg. And when you consider the tare weight - our cases weigh about 2-8kg - you can imagine how hard it is to choose what to pack first. It’s clear that all the things which have the smallest value for us must be left behind in favor of those which we will really need. We pack it all in there, we take it all out again. Of course, we have differences of opinion - Papa always thinks something else is important from what I think and he doesn’t want to get rid of any of his winter clothing. But those are just symptoms of travel fever. When we hear the call: “San Francisco, all aboard,” we will even leave our hand luggage there and get on the train. Packing is just sort of a way of distracting us to make the waiting seem shorter.

See you later my little bunnies. I hug you kissing

Helen

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This letter to Eva and Harry is filled with nostalgia, hope and longing — yet fear that things might not work out looms large.

As time goes by, like Helene I find myself walking streets that I’ve walked thousands of times and feeling the presence of people who are no longer there. Layers of the past overshadow what I see in front of me.

We see more of the cruel bureaucracy taunting Helene and Vitali as they plan to leave. Like their lives in Vienna which have become ever more constricted over the past few years, their luggage allowance shrinks each time they think they have a plan.

June 2

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Today we see another letter from Erich Zerzawy. He has been a POW in Eastern Siberia for at least a year. He is writing to his younger siblings in Brüx, Bohemia. His father and brother Paul are away from home serving in the army. You can see Russian and Austrian censorship stamps on the address side of the card.

3. June 1917

My dear ones!

Lately I have received cards only from dear Kätherl. Only one from Papa. I have missed Robert’s cards and especially his letters which seem to be sent more quickly than the cards. I hope Robert is still doing well at home, although I wish with all my heart that he could become a soldier. I wish to God that he could have better luck than I did. I am fine and I am glad you also seem to be healthy. With many thousands of kisses to all

Your Erich

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Given his own experience, it is interesting that Erich talks about how he wishes his 17-year old brother Robert can become a soldier. Was that to please the censors?

You can read more about Erich in posts from January 8, February 12, and May 13.

June 1

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Early Years/High school in San Francisco

When Eva and Harry came to San Francisco, they each were sent to live with a different relative and attended different high schools. They saw each other on weekends, sometimes at family dinners at Tillie’s home. I don’t know why the decision was made to split them up. It always seemed heartbreaking to me that no sooner were they separated from their parents than they were separated from each other. Perhaps it was because of space or economics, or perhaps the relatives thought they would adjust to speaking English and living in another country if they didn’t have each other to lean on.

Eva lived with Helene’s first cousin Bertha and her husband George Schiller. They were in their late 60s while Eva was a senior at Washington High School. At this time, the Schillers’ son Arthur was almost 40 years old and living in New York. Not only would Eva have experienced culture shock, but a large generation gap as well!

Harry was sent to live with Helene’s first cousin’s daughter Hilda and her husband Nathan Firestone. Since he was under 18 years old, he was considered their ward. Hilda was just 35 years old and Nathan was 50, so he was living with people younger than his parents. Harry attended Mission High School.

Eva graduated from Washington High in June 1940 and Harry from Mission High in June 1941. Although she was already 18 years old, Eva hadn’t graduated from high school in Vienna (for their last few years in Vienna, they were not allowed to attend school) and she needed to complete a year of high school in the U.S. to earn a diploma. Harry must have placed into a higher grade than usual for his age, because he graduated from high school a year later at the age of 17.

I don’t know if it’s my imagination, but to me Eva looks very different in her high school photo from her American classmates. Most of their faces seem happier and more carefree, while she seems very severe. Her dark blouse adds to her seriousness.

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 During his first year at Mission High, Harry was interviewed for the school paper:

Eva and Harry playing tennis on the courts at Mission High in 1941:

May 31

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Today we have excerpts from a story Helene wrote about her childhood in Bilin during the late 1890s.

Below is the first page of 2 different drafts:

Potter and Poet to Boot

It was always a real treat to me when – on a school free day – I was invited to accompany my father on a business-trip by coach, railway or on Shank’s pony [on foot]. It was on such occasional trips that I found out what a wonderful teacher and companion my father was. Those were the opportunities where I let him into my world of thoughts and interests.

My dream, my passionate desire was to travel, see foreign people and go to lands of exotic plants and animals. I thought father would laugh at my crazy ideas when I talked to him about my day-dreams but he didn’t. On the contrary, he said very seriously: “Remember, you can realize all your wishes by sticking to them and wishing them and concentrate your thought on it intensely. Some people call that ‘prayer’. Prayers are intense wishes.”

In that sense I must have prayed a lot because many of my wishes came true. What I learned on those rare rides on Shank’s mare, I attribute to father’s unexcelled skill of making even the seemingly dullest things palatable. “Keep your eyes open, nothing is uninteresting.”

The Biela-Zeitung, named after the river which flows through the little town, was more my father’s hobby and mouthpiece to express his opinions publicly than it was a profitable enterprise to provide for a family of ten. To make up for the deficit of his weekly paper and to keep his printing presses going, he visited industrial concerns and successful business people to gather orders for printing jobs.

One day, smiling as usual but with a special strain of amusement around his sunny eyes and mouth, father invited me: “How about a short study-trip to Dux?”

This town was the center of one of the most important coal-basins of North-Bohemia, the ugliest place one could imagine. Even now, after about fifty years, I remember with disgust that smoky and stinking place, as the most depressing place, save the Kazet (Concentration camp Ravensbrück).

Father observed my hesitation and without taking offence, said:

“I can't blame you for not being overjoyed to escort me to this place, but we will not stay there long. Some other day I will show you that even Dux has interesting points. In order to be there in time, we have to take an early train. At the station there will be an Einspänner [horse-drawn wagon] to bring us to an interesting pottery-factory. I know you will get a real kick out of this trip - otherwise I wouldn’t have tried to persuade you to keep me company.”

We took a so-called “mixed-train” consisting of about forty coal cars and only two passenger cars. The long train, which had the appearance of a giant caterpillar, stopped when the two passenger cars arrived in front of the station building. The third-class contingent – mostly women with big baskets and father and me – pushed against one another to obtain a seat. The wagon was crammed full. Some people who did not have eggs in their baskets used them for seats; many were standing, sardine-like.

Outside the station building waited a worn-out coach whose lacquered wheels were once red, attached to a mare which looked just as worn out. The coachman, likewise an old veteran with a belligerent mustache and a ruddy face, was inside the railway station waiting for passengers. When he recognized my father he saluted respectfully, not hiding his pleasure to have him for a fare. Apparently, he liked the editor of the Biela-Zeitung, who would bring him cigars and a lump of sugar for the mare; both accepted the thoughtfulness with an individual neigh. The coachman lifted me like a piece of luggage into the Einspänner, throwing over my knees a horse-perfumed blanket. Father called out his destination and immediately the coachman started to give father a detailed report of the events of the past week as far as he thought they would be of interest to the newspaperman. Endowed with a retentive memory, he made only a few notes of names, time and place with his pencil on his stiff cuffs, following with interest the report of his correspondent whose insight, sense of justice, and horse-sense he highly appreciated.

Father, knowing that the driver wasn’t listening as he was only interested in the bad road and his old mare, said: “Believe it or not, his reports are more competent than that of a professional reporter. He is a very keen observer and what he told me are facts and not gossip.”

Father prepared me for what I was going to see. Three brothers had inherited the pottery factory from their father as he had from his father. The oldest of the three owners, a very ambitious and industrious fellow, opened foreign markets for their products and in those days the factory was one of the biggest in the field. The second brother was the “artistic” manager and brain of that enterprise, making all designs himself.

The latest brainchild of the “artist” was a phosphorescent chamber pot. The youngest of the brothers was the office manager and was, as father called him, “Potter and Poet to boot”, after Hans Sachs’s exquisite self-persiflage: “Schuster and Poet dazu” – Shoemaker and Poet to boot, in Richard Wagner’s unexcelled comic-opera: “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg”.

The day before our excursion to the pottery factory, father had received a request for the price for illustrated catalogues in three languages. A big job for our voracious printing enterprise. Father had not the slightest idea that the “poet” had something else up in his sleeve. While his artistic brother showed me all the vases, plates, saucers and cups and other objects of art, including a pot de chambre en miniature, the poet used the absence of his brother to tell my that he had written a book of poetry and that he wanted to have it printed: “Published by the author.” Father did not give himself away by saying: “That would be the only possibility.”

Father said to me, “Your brother Max – who usually is not over-interested in my business-affairs – will be amused this time about a private order with which the ‘poet’ honored me. I wouldn’t be surprised if my son would busy himself with composing some tunes for the poems to enlarge his guitar-repertoire.”

“What do you mean by ‘private order’? Didn’t you tell me they wanted to have catalogues printed?”

“That is correct, but while you were studying ceramics, he authorized me to print his ‘collected works’”.

“Let me see, please”, I begged.

“Sorry, editorial secret.”

“Am I not a member of the editorial staff?”

“You most certainly are, but I wish to surprise the family; besides you, only your mother and Ida belong to the staff.”

“I think it is not fair to keep me, your faithful apprentice and travelling companion, on tenterhooks.”

“I agree with you entirely and apologize. You are entitled to the first print on vellum-paper to start your own collection of classics.”

We returned home with the order. After dinner father recited at random one of the “poet’s” numerous poems.

“Ei, wie das funkelt und wie das blitzt,
Wenn Ross und reiter zu Pferde sitzt.”

“What a sight! And how exciting
To see horse and rider on horse-back riding.”

A Homeric laughter broke loose. My brother jumped to the piano just as father foresaw, wishing to have a similar brainstorm in composing a melody appropriate to the poem, the fantastic Pegasus-ride as well as the artistic pot de chambre.

---

Now that I know so much more about Helene, I appreciate many different aspects of this story. When I first read it a few years ago, I had not had her letters translated. Nor had I seen early issues of the Biela-Zeitung. In my grandmother’s letter seen in the February 6 post, we saw another example of the potter’s poetry.

Helene respected, idolized and loved her father. He encouraged her curiosity and dreams, and taught and motivated her to be a better human being.

“Die Meistersinger” was my grandmother’s favorite opera - my mother Eva was named after the heroine.

In the above story, Helene’s father invites her on a “study trip to Dux,” a town she dislikes. In at least the early editions of the Biela-Zeitung, Adolf Löwy had a regular column entitled “Walks Around Dux.” I wonder whether she was alluding to that column as she told this story. Earlier this year, I looked through several issues of the Biela-Zeitung with my friend and translator. I was surprised to find that the column was not a light-hearted look at the events and sights of Dux, but that the articles touched on the corruption and wrong-doing in the town.

“Walks Around Dux” column from June 23, 1877 edition of the Biela-Zeitung.

The article begins:

….If you should happen to believe because of the events here that we live in a civilized state, that we live in a century in which in different places they sometimes call the “Century of Intelligence,” here we cannot really claim that because what seems to be happening recently here has a rather crude and bitter aftertaste of the lovely time of rule by force. There is very little that is honorable in our city and it is a very unfortunate sign of the level of culture of a peace-loving people in the street are attacked in a dastardly fashion by hired henchmen. …

May 30

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Today’s letter from Helene in Vienna to her nephew Paul Zerzawy is from May 30, 1939, several weeks after his arrival in America. Her children Eva and Harry are in Istanbul establishing citizenship to be able to get Turkish passports to emigrate; Helene is experiencing her first relatively brief separation from her children.

Vienna, 30 May 1939

My dear Paul! We got your letter from the 9th and started right away to acquire the brochures you asked for. We enclose those which we could get here from Breitkopf & Härtel [musical publishing house]. And we could get some from Frieda Benninghoven [another publisher?]. Some of them will take longer to get to us because of Pentecost. The Pentecost hustle and bustle means that getting a letter from Hanover to Vienna takes 2-1/2 days. Unbelievable. At the same time, I asked Jo to get me some English brochures from Piscarer [sp? London publisher?] to send. Maybe these will be of some advantage to you as well. As soon as I get something, I will send it right to you. In the “estate” you left behind I didn’t really find anything. Vitali prepared a list and in the notes I have enclosed you will find such things from the possessions of the Cohen children. A part of this may have been your stuff. There is a considerable amount of song and music [also refers to title of an old march Mit Sang und Klang ] and precious gems (really more like gravel). You’ll find that too.

The biggest surprise is that the children have been in Istanbul for five weeks. And they are doing well in making progress in French, Turkish, and Spanish. But you probably already know that from my earlier letters.

Our life is rushing back and forth without any pause and we are now trying to make the impossible possible and trying to get to the children soon. Our little ship had a leak in the helm, but we hope that you know how optimistic we are that it will be possible for us to plug this leak and get back to our preparations to go home.

I thank you for all the trouble you’ve gone to about hurrying up our entry visa. It was certainly well intended but actually it served no purpose, as we have Tillie who is keeping us apprised of things and the documents that we have sent to you.

I’m including some copies of the first letters we’ve gotten from the children and the later ones I will make copies of those too if you tell me you are interested.

Eva is already earning some pocket money by making flowers. She would probably get a lot more customers if she knew Turkish. And she tells me in the letter that she regrets that you did not go to Istanbul too because lawyers get rich there - there are so few of them. I however am glad that a great big body of water is separating you from us.

I am dumbfounded by the practical nature of my children. Eva writes today for the first time that she quite likes it there, that she has gotten used to it, and if it had to be, she could perhaps for financial independence stay in Istanbul. That is really not what I had in mind, but we can’t really do anything from here.

I am unhappy that my goal to have my children in my sight is not possible and I feel powerless here. The last few necessary steps are the ones I cannot take. When the children were here, we were strongly handicapped and now we really haven’t come much farther. Uncle seems to pull the strings at the highest level, but bureaucrats are the same everywhere. We would probably need to hide the key for the bathroom up higher.

You can hardly imagine a more useless existence than what we lead here. We take care of our cadaver and we try to damage as little as possible so that we will survive the trip.

Vitali went to see Marie yesterday. Both women are healthy and they are waiting. We are all waiting. There is nothing to do but wait here. It is our new profession. I have turned into a typewriter.

My types are all worn out but as long as I am in Vienna, I must take advantage of it. In the train from Vienna to Istanbul, Vitali’s portable radio will work.

I haven’t heard anything from Paula Beckhor in 8 days, but usually we call each other and she comes over quite often.

Paula F. is going to “see” her four children today. I am reading through your letter and I see that at one point I touched upon your wishes. My thoughts are jumping around. The thoughts are ripe and excuse my absent-mindedness. I could never have imagined that a person who doesn’t really have a career could be under pressure.

But you know the “road to Canossa,” where it’s necessary to do that to make progress to get away from here.  

Of your things, I have all of your notes, I have books, notebooks, and documents, and pictures. The other things I did get rid of. I did burn some correspondence and newspapers, postcards; in other words, things I instinctively knew were just a burden.

I did consider the possibility of sending things by post, but I just need a few more days until I could get done with the burden of my taxes. Poor Schiller, he would have to be turning over in his grave if he read this letter, not just because I quote him incorrectly.

The children know about your situation, because I send them copies of your letters and those from Robert as well. Unfortunately, I have not heard from Robert for 14 days now, so I sent Vitali to … I am writing to them pretty often so I hope to get answers soon.

Please do greet the Schillers for me and don’t let me wait too long for news because I have not found my way to the fate of Penelope, and now I realize my old sins of omission and I could just cry at the thought that I did something to the people who matter the most to me, that the weakness of my will may have unintentionally tortured them. Today I can’t really make it right again because the waiting is all we do. We have to wait for a fair, but possibly harsh punishment.

The best to you Paul. Begin your new life in the new world with just as much optimism as you had pessimism in the old world. Keep your head high, whatever happens.

You will hear from me soon and I don’t expect an answer, because otherwise there will be pauses. Somehow it seems to know no bounds.

With many kisses, I am

Your old
Helen

Frieda just brought over some more catalogs. Continuation to follow.

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It appears that mail was very fickle. Sometimes it took months or never arrived at all. This letter was written on May 30, 1939 and was received by Paul Zerzawy (either in San Francisco or New York) on June 6. Pretty quick even by today’s standards.

As Helene and Vitali do in 1941 as they prepare to come to America, Paul Zerzawy took little with him and left a lot of things behind.

This letter answers a question I had – how do I have letters from Eva and Harry that they sent to their parents from Istanbul to Vienna? Helene sent them to Paul Zerzawy so he would be kept up to date with what was happening and he kept them. It continues to amaze me how much information was shared across continents. We take for granted the ability to communicate far and wide with the internet, but people have always found ways to stay in touch with their loved ones, overcoming many hurdles and impediments.

My mother told me that she had learned silk flower making in Istanbul – the relatives thought that would be a good skill and that she could make a lot of money selling them. She brought the tools with her to the U.S. When I saw the Degas, Impressionism, and the Paris Millinery Trade exhibition at the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco in 2017, I thought of my mother. You can see examples of hats trimmed with silk flowers from the exhibition here. By 1939, in the U.S. such an occupation was not as lucrative as Eva’s relatives imagined. Probably better that she became a nurse!

Below are photos of the materials Eva brought with her, including a cardboard stencil of flower petals with the flowers’ names written in German.

May 29

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Vienna, 29 May 1941

My dear children and Paul! Well we’ve got it now. The American Consulate General has decided that the reasons we have listed are worthy of consideration and has sent us Form 20 which says that there is nothing standing in the way of our trip. Of course, we have to have all of the necessary formalities taken care of in a satisfactory manner. Papa is right now at the religious community to get some information about what they may have taken care of in our interest. We imagine that after the Pentecost holiday our matters will take a general step forward. 

You must excuse me that I keep talking just about us, but first it is the most important thing right now which is why I am telling you about every last phase of this. And secondly, my thoughts of the trip to you have not come back, so there’s a vacuum in my head. There ought to be a note stuck to my forehead: Nobody home.

We have a lot to do and Papa has even gotten up early to sort out and ponder what we really have to take with us and what, although with a heavy heart, we will have to leave behind. For days he has not managed to get his sun bath on the balcony. I suggested that he put his freckles in with the things we need to send. Or at least one, because it seems like his whole face is a freckle. He is afraid that when we get to the dress rehearsal for our packing, and if it takes any longer his beloved freckles are going to fade and he’s now thinking that he should be using the Pentecost holiday time to get a tan. We’ll see what the weather god has to say about that. My objection that the Spanish sun in July will give him enough opportunities to give his skin color a southern patina is ignored. I am curious how many degrees of fever I will get as a reaction of my pale skin because I haven’t had time to go chasing after every ray of sun, and there haven’t been that many anyway. I am thinking that might have been good to avoid getting a Spanish-Portuguese sunstroke. I haven’t had one since Cesenatico, but I am looking forward to one. The number of kilos we are allowed to take with us will give me plenty of chances to take a sun bath. While I am teasing Papa that his face is a freckle, I believe he is going to get back at me and discover that my body has become a water blister. I will stock up on Brandöl [a burn ointment] but of course I’ll only do that if our trip doesn’t get put off until the winter. I do not want to tempt fate or jinx this. I am so sure that we will be leaving soon that I can hardly imagine having to spend another winter here. Harry’s longing to stick his big toe in the snow and to flirt with the snow on his smaller toes is at this point something that I just can’t understand. Maybe I’ll get it when I’m down there. Easier for me to understand is the fear of pork roast with dumplings which are a good substitute for the Kipfler potatoes we won’t have. I am amazed that you don’t seem to have those, because as far as I can remember from my school learning, Bramburi [another word for “potatoes”] is a tuberous plant that was imported from America. Since Kipfler were unknown either in the the Altreich, I must assume that our dear good Kipfler potatoes were an Austrian specialty. But we can’t even get those in the Ostmark area. What an outrage! Where have our potatoes gone? It was just as hard for me to hear the story that one does not know the kitchen cart. I cannot really take all of my weights with me. Otherwise, I’d have to leave behind my head or some other part of my body.

Because of the stamps, I will have to end again. Take a deep breath. But a few more kisses more or less is not the issue. I will make this concession. I kiss, kiss, kiss you.

Helen

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In this letter to her children and nephew, you can hear Helene’s hope and giddiness as it seems that all the pieces are coming together and that she and Vitali will be reunited with her children in a few short months. As we will see in a future letter, they have tickets to leave on the Ciudad de Sevilla in July, thus the reference to the Spanish sun. Like in the letter posted May 27, she continues to take an inventory of belongings, trying to figure out what to take and what to leave behind.

May 28

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Today we have a letter from soldier Harry Lowell in New Guinea to sister Eva Lowell in San Francisco.

New Guinea
May 29, 1944

Dear Eva,

I started this letter on the 20th inst., had it on my desk for about a week, and finally decided to finish it or bust. This place has transformed me into a very lethargic fellow; at times I do not feel like doing anything at all. Correspondence is quite a mental strain in as far as I have to search for interesting things that I could tell you about; unfortunately there are no news and my descriptions of New Guinea have given you an idea of what I am doing etc., therefore this letter will sound rather incoherent and silly to you. Please consider the circumstances under which I have to carry on my correspondence.

First of all I want to acknowledge and thank you for letters, parcels, and magazines received; the letters were dated April 22, 24, 28, and May 1, 10, 12, 17; I received the March issue of the Readers Digest and also the War Map, which is very good and just the thing I wanted. I enjoyed the Sunday edition of the Chronicle very much. Keep up your patriotic and samaritan activities; such deeds are never appreciated enough, and in my case I think I have acted quite ungratefully and returned your generosity by not writing for over three weeks. Well, that’s what you get for having a brother – what a brother, eh? Joking aside, I do appreciate your faithful letter writing and please forgive my apparent laziness; I shall do my best to remedy this fault. Thank you.

O Kangaroo, O Kangaroo,
Be grateful that you are in the zoo,
And not transmuted by a Boomerang,
To zestful tangy Kangaroo meringue.

From the above you can about picture my mental status at present. By the way, there are no kangaroos here, only wallabies which are first cousins to the kangaroo.

I am glad that you heeded my advice in regards to the Standard Oil deal. It does my ego good to see that my sermon impressed you so much. (Yet I cannot help thinking that the pilot was responsible for changing your mind.) Anyway, folly my advice and you’ll get along fine, haha.

Reading the Chronicle I find that I have missed a lot of good shows; well, I’ll make up for lost time when I get back. How was the Beethoven Festival? Did you see “Sons of Fun” yet? That must be quite a riot. As much as I dislike San Francisco I’d give anything to be there right now.

A great discussion is going on right now about the possible length of this war. One says it will last another four years, another thinks that this will be over by next Christmas, and others stay undecided and disgusted. I don’t know whether I should feel optimistic or pessimistic. I think I’d better be optimistic, don’t you?

I have finally found a chess partner; at last my thinking muscles are getting good exercise. Of course, you can imagine that I get brighter and sharper every day.

I haven’t been getting much mail lately and I feel a bit downhearted right now; I suppose next week I’ll get all the letters that have accumulated for the past two weeks.

You mentioned that you were looking for a new place to live in. Did you finally get sick of your landlady’s menagerie of reptiles and mice? If you see her tell her that if she should be looking for any more species for her collection, to come to New Guinea. She would love it. 

Where are you and Paul going to find an apartment, with the present housing difficulty in San Francisco? It would be a good idea, though. Oh boy, what a household that will be!

So the quality of cigarettes in the states is getting worse, is it. I guess we are getting all the good cigarettes, as I haven’t heard any of the fellows complain yet. I have been told by fellows that have been stationed in Australia, that American cigarettes sell as high as one pound ($3.22) per carton. (Black Market, of course.) Australians go hog-wild over our cigarettes; if I should ever go on a furlough I’ll take a couple of cartons with me to trade for milk, which is getting rationed now in Australia. I do miss my daily half-gallon of cow juice, believe me.

Here is a little story about Australia. An American soldier was riding on a very slow train somewhere in Australia; the train traveled at such a slow pace that the Yank stuck his head out of the window and angrily shouted at the engineer: “Do you know what we would do with such a train in the U.S.?” The Aussie cynically replied: “You’d probably eat it, drink it, or put it in a family way.” (You can see what reputation the Yanks have in Australia.)

You are mistaken if you think that I have transferred to different surroundings; my new place is right next to my old outfit – the same mosquitoes, bugs, snakes, rats, and mud as before.

Did you have a nice birthday party? I am glad you liked my birthday address – heartwarming, wasn’t it?

Believe it or not, despite the abundance of coconuts here, I have not eaten one for three months; I wish I could send you a few. (Oh well, it’s a good thing that I cannot, because they are rather fattening, anyhow.)

I have been seeing pretty good pictures lately: Coney Island, Rosie O’Grady, Tennessee Johnson, Adventures of Mark Twain, and some others. Did you see that picture “Mayerling” with Charles Boyer and Danielle Darrieux? I have been told that it is very charming.

I say old sweetheart, how about sending me a picture of you? Your only brother yearns for a look at your face; I wouldn’t be surprised if I didn’t recognize you when I get back. It seems that I have been away for a long time – it’s only a year – yet I feel like an old man. (Silly, isn’t it?) (It isn’t, though.)

How is Paul getting along? How is Hilda and the rest of the family?

There is another argument going on right now; it is quite noisy and I had to interrupt this letter to participate in the discussion on world peace etc. I should know better than to get involved in arguments. We haven’t arrived at any settlement yet so I am going back to writing my letter. (They are still arguing.)

This is going to be the last page; I think I am going to have a tough time to fill this page. Anyway, I have written a considerably long letter.

The discussion is still going on and is interfering with my thoughts; in spite of my efforts to concentrate, the noise of the argument makes it impossible for me to think straight. Why do people argue about things they know little or nothing about?

It is quite late now and I’ll be going to bed very soon. FLASH! The argument is still in full blast. UNFLASH. I am signing off now and will continue tomorrow morning.

Last night’s debate didn’t get anybody anywhere, because the two principal speakers could not agree; as a matter of fact they wound up calling each other names.

This is a rather dreary morning – blue Monday in New Guinea – and I have not snapped out of my sleepiness yet.

Say, I have to ask you another favor, beloved sister; will you kindly send me a couple of inexpensive fountain pens? My very good $1 pen mysteriously disappeared and it is impossible to replace it here. Thank you.

Well old girl, this is all I am going to write today. I hope you find a place very soon and I look forward to taste your delicious cooking. It won’t be long now – another two or three years and “Harry will be coming marching home again, Hurrah, hurrah.”

Give my regards to Paul and also to your friends.

With love,
Harry

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Apparently Eva and their cousin Paul Zerzawy planned to get an apartment together. As far as I know, they never did so — my mother was married early the following year. It sounds like finding housing in San Francisco was just as difficult then as it is today.

As I read this letter, I was struck by how often Eva wrote to her brother Harry. While he was writing once in awhile, she was writing at least once a week, much like her mother did from Vienna while that was possible. She often sent care packages, including magazines and newspapers. I found an ad for “Sons of Fun” in the April 2, 1944 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle. Apparently it played on Broadway for three years before making it to the west coast.

Found at San Francisco Chronicle (online), 2 Apr 1944 65 ‹https://infoweb-newsbank-com.ezproxy.sfpl.org/apps/news/document-view?p=AMNEWS&docref=image/v2%3A142051F45F422A02%40EANX-NB-15002BE40B4637D1%402431183-14FF7A5DA81DA76A%4064›

Recently, I looked at the letters my mother sent me in 1978-1979 during my year abroad in France. As with her parents and brother 30 years earlier, she wrote to me at least once a week. Writing letters to a loved one an ocean away must have felt eerily familiar. At least this time a war was not keeping us apart and I had a definite return date. One of my favorite care packages that year came either from my mother or from my closest friends – a Sunday edition of the San Francisco Chronicle. The tradition continued!

May 27

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Today we have a letter from Helene in Vienna to Harry who is about to graduate from Mission High School in San Francisco.

Vienna, 27 May 1941

Dear boy of my heart and newspaper boy! The Lord God himself must have felt sorry for me because he saw my useless waiting for letters from you. In order to right this injustice your letters from April 30 and from May 8 from Frisco came today. The great detail in these made me even happier and my resilience - Papa hasn’t really suffered that much from not getting letters. I almost believe it increased his agility and his activity has helped him make quite a bit of progress on our matter. As soon as we receive our passports and clearance certificates [certificates of good conduct] from Berlin, there will be nothing to stand in the way of our departure. The harmlessness [?] will have happened by then. The only thing that still remains a big question mark is the statement from the American Consulate. The general consul will not issue a visa until one can show that the travel tickets have been booked, but the travel tickets are not issued until one can show a visa. So maybe Papa can figure out how to prove which came first — the egg or the chicken.

Can perhaps Mr. High School Graduate recommend some way of decreasing the specific weight of all the things that we must bring with us? I’m not too sure yet how I should do that. Should I leave all of my left shoes or all of my right shoes behind and should I present myself for my trip across the big pond as Mona Vonna when I intend to reach the holy ground of the United States? I would be very grateful to you for any advice on this. Fortunately, Papa and I have over the past few years developed sort of a common wardrobe. I wear almost exclusively his sports shirts as blouses and he enjoys wearing my trousers and my handkerchiefs - that I wear the pants at home [wear the pants in the family?] is only some sort of malicious invention of Jo’s. As far as your second aphorism goes that marriages turn into a 30 to 70 year war - I must tell you that here in Seidlgasse we are seen as a model of a married couple. Papa has never been so gallant as now, and this after we’ve been married for 21 years. Vitali by the way is commanding me to finish this up now because if I write more he will not have enough stamps to put on the envelope. Of course you will be very happy to have me stop since I am going on in this kind of tone. I hope that there will be no interruption in postal service, especially not to such an extent that I would really have to wait and pick it up myself. I would like to be able to help you deliver the newspapers.

Many, many kisses
Helen

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According to Wikipedia, La Joconde nue or Monna Vonna was a charcoal drawing from the school of Leonardo da Vinci. Other artists made similar paintings and Monna Vanna appeared in literature, music and film.

At this point, Helene and Vitali have been downsizing for over a year, thinking in vain that they were on the verge of getting on a ship for the U.S. And yet their luggage is still too heavy to meet the travel allowance.

May 26

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Today we have a letter from soldier Harry Lowell stationed in Fort Francis E. Warren in Wyoming to Julius and Tillie Zentner in San Francisco. Tillie/Matilda Zentner was Helene’s first cousin and the Zentners were instrumental in bringing Eva and Harry to the U.S. in 1939.

 May 26, 1943

Dear aunt Tillie & uncle Julius,

To begin with I want to thank you for the nice card, the excellent candy and your letter.

I have finished my basic training and have been transferred to another company and will get schooling for about eight weeks. I’ll be trained in motor mechanics and operations; I started school Monday morning, and I must say that the army has a very good way of getting the principles of mechanics into one’s head. Although it’s a super-rapid course (the mechanics training has been cut down from 15 weeks to 4 weeks) results have been very good, according to the reports from headquarters.

We get up at 5:30, exercise for an hour, and go to school. (I forgot to mention that we have breakfast before exercise, lest you think they are too hard on us). We stay in school the whole day, save a one-hour lunch period. I must say that for the short time I have attended classes, I know quite a bit about the anatomy of our army trucks. We are going to have a test tomorrow that’ll show whether or not we have digested the material that has been heaped upon us.

I just received a letter from Jules; he seems to be studying pretty hard for his final examinations. I hope he’ll like to work in Sacramento; I am afraid he’ll have to do the work of two men, so it won’t be much of a vacation for him. I received a letter from my landlady the other day; she is expecting her son from Hawaii any day now. She said that she goes to restaurants almost every day because she and her husband work different shifts and because good food is pretty high and scarce. (Is it really that bad in civilian life now/ If it is, I advise everyone to join the Army or Waacs). I’ll be happy to write to them and ask whether they’ll be able to take a gentleman boarder this summer. Unless you have made other arrangements in regards to his boarding, let me know in your next letter whether you want me to find out about it.

By Jules’ letter I see that Lucien is still the banana prince of Third Street.

What kind of packing house are you going to open in San José? I guess you won’t lose much by not sending trucks up the Lake this year.

Every week new rookies flow into the camp and trained men leave for unknown destinations. Whenever I go to town I look around for young men; the only young men are high school boys and the rest of Cheyenne’s population consists of women and ineligible men. I almost got a cramp in my arm saluting all the officers that ran around town last Sunday.

I had K.P. again last week; I washed dishes all day. Because of the soap (G.I. soap) I used, my fingers took on the shape of bananas. It took two hours and a series of vinegar baths to shrink them to their natural size again. (The G.I. soap is said to take the fuzz off a cactus, so you can imagine the potency of it.)

Well, I have to close now as I have a lot of studying to do. (Maybe I can have your business when I come back; I’ll repair your Buick without charge).

Hoping you are in the best of everything, I remain

Yours sincerely,
Harry. 

P.S. My new address is – Co. F-B228 1st QMTR.

P.P.S. Thank you also for the clipping.

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Julius was a widower with children and grandchildren when he married Tillie. He and Tillie had no children. Jules and Lucien were his grandsons. Although Harry worked for Julius’s company for awhile, he was not interested in pursuing it as a career. We learned a bit about the Levy-Zentner company in my February 9 post. Here is an excerpt from Julius Zentner’s obituary that appeared on page 20 of the January 8, 1953 issue of the San Francisco Examiner: 

…Mr Zentner, a business leader here for more than half a century, died Tuesday night in his home at 2001 California Street after several years of ill health. He would have been 89 years old next month.

BANK DIRECTOR.
Although retired from direction of his firm, he was at the time of his death a director of the Bank of America, and attended the board’s last meeting here….

Mr. Zentner came here from Europe in the early 1880’s. From a commission business that netted him $6 a week, he built an enterprise which now grosses more than $30,000,000 a year.

At the time of the 1906 earthquake, he was the president of J. Zentner & Company, with headquarters at Washington and Front Streets.

FIRMS MERGE.
A short distance away, at Washington and Davis Streets, was the rival firm of A. Levy & Company.

Surveying the ruins of their establishments after the quake and fire, Zentner and Levy decided to get together on a new establishment.

The new firm, A. Levy & J. Zentner Company, started out in March of 2907 with twenty-five employees.

Today, the firm has branches in the principal business centers of the West, ships produce throughout the East, and employs between 600 and 700 persons.  

A jovial, robust man, Mr. Zentner worked twelve to fourteen hours a day in building the firm.

“NO HOBBY BUT WORK.”
In the 1920’s, he once said:

“I have no hobby but my work. I never play golf. Neither does A.P. We don’t fancy such things.”

“A.P.” was the late A.P. Giannini, founder of the Bank of America, and one of Mr. Zentner’s closest friends.

Business associates said Mr. Zentner had what could be called a magic touch in the produce business. He knew when and what to buy. “He could scent the market,” one associate said. “His predictions were uncanny.”…

May 25

Link to Family Tree to understand family relationships.

Yesterday we read a story about the household geese. Today we learn about other livestock, ducks.

Marischka appears in many of my grandmother’s stories. She seemed to be much more than a maid, taking care of the family, house, garden, and animals. In the stories, she appears as a sort of Mary Poppins in young Helene’s eyes – someone who was always there to keep her safe and make magical things happen. While her parents and older siblings were occupied with work and school, Marischka was Helene’s primary companion. That meant too that Helene knew more of the maid’s private life than the rest of the family since Marischka seems to have taken every opportunity to meet her boyfriend Franticek, often using the children as cover.

Sometimes the names in the stories get confusing, because the girls in the family had their given name and at least one nickname, and often Helene uses them interchangeably. Ida, the eldest, apparently did not have a nickname. She was 17 when Helene was born so was more of a parental figure than a sibling. Next came Mathilde/Mattl, Clara, Flora/Florly, Irma/Hummel, and Helene/Enene. Only son Max seems to have always been known as Max.

Below is a photo of the first page of the story – Helene did not use a stapler or paper clip, instead tying the story together with red string looped through the binder holes. So resourceful! Perhaps something she learned in her father’s print shop. In the story below, we learn about how the household found uses for everything. For example, Helene’s uncle Carl’s coffee import and bags came in handy for foraging.

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Child Without Childhood (Ch V)
Life With Our Ducklings

Mother told me to gather Brennessel – nettles – as soon as Irma came home from school. She handed me two pairs of old gloves, warning me not to touch the nettles with bare hands because they cause small blisters which burn your hands as the name indicates. (Brennen means to burn).

“Are you sure, mummy, that the little ducks will not get burning blisters in their throat?”

“Quite sure. Nettles are candies to them!”

I was bursting with excitement to bring my sister Hummel the interesting news that we have pets. I couldn’t wait for her at home and excitedly I ran to her school. Together we rushed home only to deposit Irma’s school satchel into the kitchen and to ask Marischka for some paper bags or a basket. Equipped with these and our gauntlets we were off. With zeal we took over that important job to collect “candies” for our darlings, to which my sister had paid only a short visit before, ashamed to come without a gift. The little yellow spots walking on two legs were so beautiful and the thought that they belonged to both of us made us feel happy. From the window Marischka called that we didn’t need to walk far away. On the bank of the river Biela were the fattest nettles. Each morning Marischka spread fresh grass on the floor of our children’s “walking school” after she cleaned it up with fresh water. Fortunately, there was a faucet nearby, used to clean the lead type from the printer’s ink before they became “abgelegt” [filed]– terminus technicus [technical term] for returning the type to the compartments in the box where they belonged. 

To get the necessary grass for the next morning, Marischka took us out for a walk after dinner to which not even Ida objected, as it was spring. She took a big burlap bag which had still the brown stamp “Java” on it, where the coffee-beans uncle Carl sent to mother came from, and we walked, in the direction of Kutterschitz [now Chudeřice – about a mile from Bilin], for there was the highest and best grass, the spinach for our pets. While Irma and I plucked that “spinach” with zest and glowing cheeks, Marischka rested in the high grass from the task of the day. Franticek, with whom she made that appointment the night before, kept her company. My sister and I were too engrossed in our work to pay any attention to whatever was going on in our surroundings. After Marischka had rested enough, Franticek and she plucked ten times more than we had gathered in more than an hour.

Now I felt very tired and sleepy. Marischka put the burlap bag from Java over her back fastened with a cord, took me in her arms, and carried me home. Irma was tired too and wouldn’t have admitted it, but willingly she took Marischka’s hand. We must have looked a biblical picture like a stray group of mother and two children at the exodus of Egypt.

Ida reproached Marischka in her softspoken way for returning so late, but our maid lied pertly that she would have come home earlier, but the children enjoyed their occupation so much. Our glowing eyes and red cheeks proved her excuse to be true, but Ida nevertheless asked her to bring us home the latest at eight o’clock or if she wanted to stay longer, to leave us at home.

Our grown-up sisters showed their interest in the little ones once or twice a day. Once Mattl made a nice sketch with watercolors which Clara copied as a pattern and embroidered a white muslin apron for Ida, who was enraptured by it.

Pretty soon our sweet pets lost their brilliant yellow color. Although our love and care remained, we had to resign our proxy now that they were in puberty and we were declared as not competent anymore.

Our pets had outgrown their kindergarten and were transferred to that shed in which wood to kindle the fire in the stoves was stored. The floor became strewn with straw. Marischka cleaned the “walking school” from the grass, and washed the place thoroughly; all we were allowed to do for our ex-wards was to refill the vessel with fresh water and provide them with new candies, but the feeding methods changed; they got corn or barley. The door was barred with a crossbar which we were not allowed to open; we had to hand over the gathered nettles to our maid. Mother ordered that one of the apprentices cut an opening, a window so to speak, in their new apartment. Marischka found that the boys made too big a hole in the door and the little birds could become homesick for her kindergarten and nailed two small boards crosswise for security’s sake.

Hummel and I were pondering why we had been disqualified as their guardians. We thought our pets must have done something terrible to be imprisoned for life. We didn’t get a satisfactory answer what kind of crime they had committed.

Our adult ducks really led a dog’s life now. When Marischka had time in the afternoon, she drove the white birds with red shoes to the nearby bank of the Biela river and we looked with pleasure and pride at their acrobatic performances.

Gradually we lost interest in them and didn’t count the heads. We had not observed that the number of them was reduced by two after we had one Sunday roast duck. Father had refused a tender drumstick, saying that because of his new denture he would prefer potato soup. Since it was not ready, coffee would be enough because he wasn’t hungry. The rest of the family had not such sentimental stomachs and did not pay any attention. Mother put them on our menu when her husband was out of town, which happened frequently.

My sister Irma and I always handed over the candies for our pets. When we asked why we no longer took them out for a swim, Marischka said they had a cold.

May 24

Link to Family Tree to understand family relationships.

In yesterday’s letter, Helene referred to herself as a goose. Being a “silly goose” is something we commonly say in English, so the first time I read it I didn’t give it a thought. As I’ve delved more deeply into her letters this year, I noticed she used the word “goose” or “geese” several times. As with the literary and musical references reminding her children of their shared past, Helene was probably thinking back to her own childhood.  

In the 1950s, Helene’s son Harry bought her a typewriter and encouraged her to write down her memories. Most of what she wrote was about life as a child in Bilin. She organized it into chapters and at least two different “books”. She called the first book “Child Without Childhood”. Today we have excerpts from one of the stories in the book.

Helene was born in Bilin (now Bilina), a spa town of a few thousand people in Bohemia. As we’ve seen in previous posts, her father owned a bookstore/stationery store/print shop and published a weekly local newspaper. Helene felt stifled in Bilin, both by the antisemitism she encountered and by the lack of intellectual life. She fled to Vienna at the earliest opportunity.

What I hadn’t understood until reading her stories is that much of life in Bilin in the 1890s was closer to the 18th century than to the 20th. Families, particularly those without a lot of money and with a lot of children, had to be resourceful and creative in order to survive and live at all comfortably. Several chapters in “Child Without Childhood” were devoted to the geese that coexisted on the property with the print shop and bookstore. To young Helene, they were beloved pets; to the adults, they were a valuable source of food and feathers. This realization came as a shock to Helene when her pets’ lives were cut short.

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Child Without Childhood - Chapter III:  Federnschleissen

Federnschleissen - to strip quilts [quills/feathers] - was a special winter occupation, hated by the female staff of the household because that work required total silence while doing it. Talking, sneezing, coughing, even taking deep breaths was prohibited in order not to stir up the fine down.

We two children, Irma and I, welcomed it. It put us in a Christmas carol mood, gave us the feeling of some importance being included in taking part in such a serious job and we felt almost grown up. Out of necessity, the strict rules which had to be observed did not produce such a festival atmosphere among the adults.

We children observed that ordained ritual minutely, partly to show that we were mature enough to perform such an important task, partly for the hope that our good behavior and usefulness could have a favorable influence on the number of ornately wrapped and labeled gifts we would receive. …

The thoughts of the housemaid (at that time the wet-nurse of my brother ruled dictatorially the household, an office my sister Ida by no means begrudged, giving her the opportunity to assist father which she did with more relish) were wandering to her lover in the nearby casern or were feasting in the foretaste of the three-days lasting holidays and trysts with frantic mass-eating which generally ended with stomachaches and hangovers, but nobody was thinking of the end of the Merry-Christmas mood. The guesswork of what Christkindl (Santa Claus) made had in store for them, conjured a happy smile on the faces of everybody who was occupied in that brain-killing occupation.

According to incontestable and unwritten Bohemian law, the ritual of federnschleissen took place as soon as dishwashing was over and we children (my older sisters excused themselves with homework) voluntarily offered our assistance.

…The sewing machine, luggage, some baskets, and anything else was covered with oilcloth. We children were advised to visit the little girls room before the work started because later there would be no opportunity. Now the sunporch, half harem, half prison, was closed up for the duration of the quilt stripping ceremony.

The wall opposite the kitchen went towards the big backyard and similar to the kitchen, instead of windows, had a glass partition and only the upper part had a contraption to open some of the window panes. There, just opposite the kitchen, was a so called Legebank. A great bench which could change into a double bed. Inside were the bedclothes, pillows, blankets and mattresses for the help. In addition to being the working and ironing room, the sun porch was their bedroom too.

… Ida taught us how to make from the feathers brushes for basting meats, cookies or baking sheets. Irma got some blue strands and I some red ones to braid together the way Ida showed us. We both liked that occupation. It made us feel so grown-up, so important. Our industry and dexterity was lauded by the quilt-stripping company and we developed a real skill in manufacturing those highly appreciated kitchen items. Mattl joined us after she finished her homework and it was impossible to leave the room. The only exemption was when mother knocked at the window-pane when father wanted Ida’s assistance. When after mother’s unerring calculation the work must soon come to an end, she started to set the table in the kitchen so that we could watch with great pleasure for our well-deserved Kaffee Klatsch. The fine aroma of coffee and cake tickled our nostrils in a more agreeable manner and the bored miens of the adult occupants changed in the opposite. Ida sealed up the pillows by tight stitches. The windows were opened, the masquerade was at an end, our costumes were put into a laundry basket and covered so that not a single feather could escape during the transport into the backyard, to be slapped with Klopfer, a tennis racket like gadget of wicker. Mattl escorted us to a little windowless closet where she brushed our hair and supervised our hand cleaning. The oilcloth covers from the furniture were cautiously folded to be later shaken in the backyard. Not even Jules Verne had imagined the convenience of vacuum cleaners.

A checkered tablecloth was spread over the long table and the sun porch appeared in its usual shape.

Mother clasped her hands: “Coffee is on the table.” Within a few minutes the Federnschleissing  company was completely assembled for a feast of joy that lasted over two hours. Singing broke out with the vehemence of an eruption of a volcano. In father’s printing shop a few girls were sometimes needed to adjust printings, clean up the office and bookbinding rooms and other minor work. If they were not needed, father didn’t send them away for mother always had a use for them. One of them was the daughter of an Italian man who worked in a nearby Tagbau open pit mine. My father hired her because she was his only living child. Her mother passed away at childbirth and the widower moved to Bohemia on account of better pay! And the Italian worker found work easily at Tagbau, most of the mines had been burning for decades and the fire couldn’t be quenched, only choked up with earth. A murderous occupation and the Italian people from Sicily and Naples could stand working on the hot earth better than the people from our cold climate. That girl sang Neapolitan songs; Manko, my brother’s wet-nurse sang although she was born in middle-Bohemia where mostly the Czech language was used, sang German songs which sounded incomprehensible and we broke out in unison in hysterical laughter, which she accepted as applause. The prize-winner was of course Marischka with her ballads, and even Ida seemed amused by tunes and words, although she wouldn’t appreciate them if Max would include them in his repertoire.

My favorite ballad was the story of a crusader who said farewell to his sweetheart in the darkness of the night, resting on a bench in an arbor, hidden by wild vines, invisible to the eyes of a spy. That song had about thirty stanzas. If knight Ivan had behaved himself knightly, while sitting with his bride nightly I am not able to say, only that my sisters got a lot of fun out of it and my brother asked me secretly to write them down in a diary he gave me, to surprise our oldest sister and giver her pleasure. That masterpiece of German song Marischka always chose as her leitmotif for ironing, probably on account of its length. When through with the melodrama, a whole week’s laundry for the entire family was done. Sometimes she had to insert intermissions to change the cool of a flat iron to a red-hot one and when it was too hot, she made some rhythmically swinging movements, without interrupting the love song of knight Ivan whose feelings were just as hot as the iron. Now I think not of when she sensed when to change the iron, but of when the love of that couple had reached the same dangerous temperature.

To prevent that this masterpiece of German poetry doesn’t fall in oblivion, which would be a pity for its words as well as for the tunes were extraordinary too, I will recite only the first stanza:

In des Gartens dunkler Laube
Sassen abends Hand in Hand
Ritter Ivan mit der Ida,
In der Liera festegebannt.

Bound to fight in Holy Land
Sitting in the harbor, hand in hand,
Knight Ivan and his beloved bride Ida
At night, devoted to their love’s awe.

Had the honorable judge seen that poem for whose translation I am answerable, I never would have gotten my American citizenship. I thank God that a well-deserved death sentence isn’t applied to bad writing. But I could not forgive myself had I kept the sample of German-Bohemian kitchen poetry for myself. What a find it would be for Ann Russell. Only to her I would dare to record the crusader’s farewell to his love in thirty strophes, as everybody will understand, especially as I hinted that his love was just as red-glowing as Marischka’s iron. She could by sprinkling the laundry prevent damage, but one couldn’t apply the same method to knight Ivan’s.

When my dear father on the day of Federnschleissen had to resign to his wife’s and oldest daughter’s collaboration, he had also to regret that he had skipped the time where quilts had been the requisite of writers and that he had to spend for steel-pens, where he would have quills in abundance. But Mattl atoned for such a loss. Not that she made quills for him, but she saved a lot to clean his pipes, nobody else would have made such a sacrifice.

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Contrary to my grandmother’s prediction, the folksong has not been forgotten and examples can be heard on YouTube.

May 23

Link to Family Tree to understand family relationships.

Vienna, 23 May 1941

#100

My dear children! Since this is another anniversary letter, I would like to start this Friday ritual with a different introduction than that we still haven’t received any letters from you, but unfortunately that’s not possible. What is the silly goose dreaming of? The year 1941 had a bad harvest of corn, and geese like me should decide to dream about something else. We’ve had a dramatic pause in our matters. It would have been too good if things could have just stayed on track at the same pace. The next transport is going on July 4 and as they say, if the Lord God wills, even a broomstick can grow [a variation on a German saying - God can make impossible things happen.] Maybe he wants us to be among those who go, but in the meantime there is still a lot to do. It’s not really dependent on us, so all of our efforts are not going to help at all. Our fatalism has taught us that the stupidest thing you can do is to bang your head against the wall. All that gets you is a bump on your head on one side and damage to the wall on the other side, so nothing comes from that. My head can do without the decoration and the wall hasn’t really done anything to me so the most reasonable thing to do is to wait for Form #13 in all humility. In the meantime, it’s become summer in Vienna and a walk from Meidling to Hietzing has brought all sort of enthusiasm up in me. Papa cannot be moved into such a poetic mood as easily, and he looks at things with his sober eyes that I cluelessly ignore. It was beautiful in Schönbrunn. Everything was blooming. Chestnuts, lilacs, and tulips were shining in the most incredible colors. Clear blue sky covered this little spot of the world that looked like a paradise. With great majesty, the Gloriette towered above the carpet of flowers and like flowers which had escaped from their beds, a large number of children were darting about. In this environment I can forget the raw reality that we have to deal with. However, I didn’t have much patience for being outside so long because the “maybe the afternoon mail has brought a letter” did not leave me any peace. The possibility would have of course been possible, but there was no letter. My prayer with the rosary beads began again from the beginning. Papa says I am incurable and he says he really doesn’t understand me. Now that I have the possibility of picking up my letters myself, I cannot seem to get away from the obsession of waiting for the mail every single day.

I have some more writing to do for our matters and so I need to go now. Vitali is getting up from his sun worship and I must hurry. Greetings and kisses to all. I will answer Hilda very soon.

Kissing you and Paul most sincerely
Helen

Helene mentions that this is an anniversary letter — I assume that she is referring to her marriage to Vitali on May 18, 1920. Or is it that this is the 100th letter she has written to her children since they were separated almost 2 years earlier? At this point, Helene and Vitale are at a standstill and unable to do anything to further their cause and they have had no news from their children for awhile. In order to not think about their current difficulties, Helene takes us on a lovely springtime walk in Vienna. The walk they took was about 4 miles from their home, so they must have taken a bus or tram to get to Meidling.

It was approximately a two mile walk from Meidling to Hietzing.