July 21

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Today we have a letter from Harry in Quartermaster Training at Fort Francis E. Warren, Wyoming from Harry Lowell to his sister Eva in San Francisco.

July 19, 1943

Dear Sister,

Thank you for your kind letter which I am answering promptly.

Well, I might get a furlough in the very nearest future, and on the other hand I might not. So you see how things stand. The army has a way to keep you in suspension and to disappoint you, and vice versa. You never know what you are going to do the next hour.

What’s the latest dope on the nurses’ draft bill? I hope you can get into the Army Nurse Corps. Have you tried to appeal to that draft board yet? I think, that in spite of the fact that you can’t volunteer, there is a way to get in provided you use a little of your innate wisdom & spunk and also a bit of acting. You might mention the fact that you got your little brother in the armed forces and all that. It’s worth trying, Eva! 

Say, I want to stand up in the defense of those lieutenants that seemed to be too good to dance on the same floor with the servicemen, as you stated. Army etiquette forbids commissioned officers to mingle with servicemen – you see it wasn’t the fault of the lieutenants entirely. Officers are not allowed into U.S.O.’s or other servicemen’s activities. This is part of many teachings that come under “discipline.” Even while the WAC’s were only WAAC’s, army officers were forbidden to date non-commissioned WAAC’s and vicey versey.

I spend my Sundays swimming at the lake and getting tanned, thus enjoying my stay here as much as possible. As you know, I have changed my opinion about Cheyenne and have pronounced it a pretty nice town. Ugh, I have spoken. Life is sweet and tender. 

I got a letter from Bertha telling me about the arrival of Don and Jerry; I take it that they are keeping her quite occupied.

During the last week I saw a bit of beautiful scenery of Wyoming and Colorado. We drove the army trucks all over the country. I was driving and at the same time admiring ze wonders of nature. It’s a beautiful country, indeed. Come up and see it sometime, eh toots?

It seems that we are making a lot of progress in the various theaters of war. Maybe I’ll bask under the sun of Italy, looking at the waves of the Adriatic Sea, or enjoy the company of a petite mademoiselle de la France, or even have a few drinks in Heidelberg. What a vacation that would be, ah. (Daydreaming again, tsk, tsk.) 

Anyway I’ll write you a card from any place I should happen to be.

Will you kindly excuse my writing today; it’s somewhat on the scribbling side on account of je ne sais pas.

Well, adios hermana mía; maybe I see you soon, yes, no?

Your brother,
Harry.

P.S. Don’t forget what I told you about trying to get into the Nurse Corps. So long, Lieutenant!

---

In just a few months, Harry has gotten the hang of being in the army – there are no certainties – when and whether he can get a furlough, where he might be stationed, etc. He has no control over his life — this must have fed right into the family sense of fatalism.

It is interesting that Eva apparently wasn’t able to volunteer for the Army Nurse Corps. I assume it’s because she wasn’t yet a citizen. Harry on the other hand was able to enlist and to expedite his citizenship. Eva didn’t become a citizen until early in 1945. Congress didn’t get very far in considering drafting women until early 1945 . By then, Eva was married and would have been ineligible.

This letter clarifies a missing link on the family tree – her grandchildren were named Don and Jerry. 

Harry writes that “Life is sweet and tender” which is echoed on an undated photo I have of him in uniform. Perhaps he sent the photo with this letter? Seeing it twice in his writing made me wonder whether it was a line from Goethe. A search on Goethe yielded nothing, but I found an operetta by Franz Lehar with a song entitled “Friends, life is well worth living!” by Paul Knepler and Fritz Löhner-Beda. According to Wikipedia, the operetta in 1934 in Vienna was performed for a few years premiered, but did not get much attention elsewhere.

Harry peppers his letter with French and Spanish, reminding us that he aspired to be multi-lingual like his father (see July 5 post)

Although Harry only writes of the present as an American soldier, I like to think that his quoting the memory of a song their mother would have sung with them and his throwing in bits of other languages is a reminder of their parents and their shared past.

July 20

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Today we have a letter from Yomtov Cohen, one of Vitali’s relatives (a nephew or cousin?) in Istanbul. We have seen previous letters he wrote trying to facilitate her release and emigration to the U.S. to rejoin her children at last. Helene arrived in Istanbul two months earlier in a prisoner trade which liberated her from Ravensbrück and has been living as a prisoner in Istanbul as well. In a few of Harry’s letters to his sister Eva (see May 17, June 5 and July 13 posts), it is clear he is frustrated about not being in San Francisco to help her bring their mother over. Letters and memos from the Joint, which was paying for housing for the prisoners in Istanbul, talk about trying to move people though as quickly and economically as possible (see July 10 post). I assume I have this letter because it was sent to Eva in San Francisco to help her understand what steps were necessary to speed up her mother’s release. This letter touches on yet another worry for Helene – will she be “encouraged” (pressured?) to go to Palestine instead of waiting for the resources to get to her desired destination?

---

Istanbul, July 20, 1945

Dear Mrs. Helene,

I have received your valued letter.

According to your wishes, I sent one of my employees to the American Vice Consul to find out something about your case.  He was informed that the papers having to do with the affidavit have not been received yet.  To speed things up, it would be necessary for Eva in America to expedite sending in the relevant documents.  Can you write to your daughter and send me the letter so that I can send it on to her via airmail?

As far as the registrations are concerned, my employee was given the enclosed form which you should kindly answer and return to me so that your request may be registered at the American Consulate.  However, I have the impression that the matter will take quite a while.  Thus, expediting the matter in America could speed things up here.

Could you please let me know what your situation is here.  Will you be able to stay here longer, or will you be encouraged to go to Palestine?

Expecting, as always, your valued news, I remain

Yomtov

July 19

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Today we have two separate letters sent from Helene in Vienna to her children Eva and Harry. She has written “No. 40” on the top of each, meaning it’s the 40th letter (or pair of letters) she has sent to them since they left Vienna for San Francisco in October 1939.

 Vienna, 19 July 1940

My beloved child Eva! Your last letter from July 3 restored the balance of my soul again. 14 days I was without any news and I was walking around with my face looking like little Harry when he was in the theater for the first time and kept saying “My name is Ernst. I am Ernst, I want to remain Ernst for the entire day because I have lost the laugh” [pun: Ernst means “serious”]. I lost my laugh because I haven’t heard anything from Harry since the 10th of June and I did not even get the “surprise letter” from you. If Harry were in his familiar surroundings, it would be ridiculous to be so worried, but since I don’t know where he is hanging around, I am very disturbed by the lack of letters from him. From your letter which reached me the day before yesterday, I can see also that the previous letter from you did not arrive since you mention a topic only in passing with the remark that you would have mentioned it anyway. It was about the communication that you sometimes even after dinner can go out. I am happy about that and would like to know more about what you are doing, especially about the treatment. Your shyness has rather amused me, as did your transformation, my damaged little soul. If you had stayed here, you would be justified criticizing girls for whom taking advantage seems quite natural and has to do with their philosophy of life.  In America, this seems to be quite different - the poorest devil thinks that he should behave in a knightly fashion and take a lady out even if he cannot afford lunch the next day. It strikes me as kind of funny that I am here giving you a lecture about living in the United States when you are actually living there. I am only doing this based on my reading and on the tales that Bertha and Tillie tell. However, I did find it quite astonishing this custom that the woman would pay for the bill herself when the man is also there: no, that is my trip. Flowers, candy, even a book, you can accept that from a gentleman and that doesn’t commit you to anything.* That seems to be a Central European oddity that when you are paid for that you need to return the favor. I am feeling like I’m being rather pretentious to discuss this with you since you are someone who has traveled much further than I have, and really I could learn a lot from you. So there it is, I am more curious than I was when I was younger. Does Harry write to you? What is Paul doing and have you heard from little Robert? There is not much to tell from our end of things. If it is not pouring at 5 o’clock, I’ll pick up Papa, and then we go to run errands or decide to go get an ice cream or we watch the weekly news in a movie theater where we perhaps see a little bit of California, Texas, or Pennsylvania. Through your letters we are sometimes reminded of the Prater and the prairies seem closer than the Hauptallee. Since The Cohens don’t get to go to the Prater, the Prater has to come to the Cohens. And it does. Not really that the Ferris wheel comes shaking towards us or that the elevated way finds its way to Seidlegasse, no, but the flea circus didn’t visit us either. But the mosquitoes did. [quotes a song about nasty beasts going for naked knees] But they make concessions for me since I don’t have my knees naked in bed. They decorate my arms, neck and nape with a very artistic but painful design as if on a quilt. Is it because these sweet little things don’t dare touch Papa perhaps since he has the original quilt all the way up to his chin, or the smell of his self-invented hair cream? If I were this mosquito, I would prefer silver Roman coins. When he saw my beautifully decorated skin, Papa was very sympathetic and showered me with sweet attention and hot tea at breakfast. It’s so unusual for him he’s not used to being so sweet to ladies in order to win over their hearts. Jo knows all about that because he throws her out all the time. By the way, Jo did not receive your most recent letter She says hello to you and also to Alf. If you know his address, please send him a card and send her greetings on to him. So my sweet golden child, please write me in detail and often because we have to realize that not all letters arrive and therefore we have these nerve wracking pauses in our communication which really drive us crazy; they rob us of our last shred of sanity. If old Galotti had known me his statement that “he has no one to lose” would have been even more justified. I should stop now says my paper and I will obey. My most sincere kisses.

Mutti

*I preached this to you at the time.

As in letters we saw earlier in the year (see January 24 and February 5 posts), Helene tries to give motherly advice, even from afar. The distance is vast — both in miles and between the old and new worlds. It must have been heartbreaking to “watch” her children grow up without her and know how much she has missed.

Helene’s quotation is from Gotthold Lessing’s 1772 play Emilia Galotti:

Wer über gewisse Dinge seinen Verstand nicht verlieret, der hat keinen zu verlieren!
Whoever doesn't lose his mind about certain things has none to lose!

According to Wikipedia, Goethe referred to the play in his 1774 novel The Sorrows of Young Werther. I don’t know whether the play was produced in early 20th century Vienna, but she would have encountered it when reading Goethe!

---

 Vienna, 19 July 1940

Harry, Harry, have you completely forgotten your mother? Why don’t you write? For God’s sake it can’t be that all your letters have gotten lost. Or can it be from all that driving around chauffeuring that you are not physically able to write? I am just so happy I received a report from little Everl yesterday but since she does write as she should, the interval is not so great even when every now and then one of her letters doesn’t arrive. Paul has apparently already forgotten what it’s like when one is waiting for mail. He is a person who always busy even when he has nothing to do. Tillie doesn’t answer any of my letters and that really bothers me. What’s the matter? Papa sends me to the door 10 times with his “Hey, doorbell’s ringing.” And I run to the door relying on his hearing which is better than mine to see if there might be a letter from you even though I know that at this time of day mail is never delivered. There are so many amazing wonders that one experiences - why shouldn’t a letter from you arrive at a wonderful time? Meals are the best time for celebrating reminiscences and thinking about you. We were in fact just at table for a meal in the greatest of moods. When I’m spreading butter on my bread, Vitali says “your son would have been able to use that much butter on 14 pieces of bread” (14! think of it). And if I put sugar in my tea he says “you eat too much, you’re getting too fat. Why don’t you use your daughter as an example?” And with such sentimental jokes, we pass the time and breakfast. There was an amusing intermezzo a few days ago in our store. A man asked for a globe. Papa hands him one and the customer turns it around in his hand a few times. Papa says “well, don’t look for the Danube, they don’t really have that much detail on these things.” The man takes the pencil sharpener, pays for it and goes away. After a while he came back. Papa thought maybe he wanted to return this huge purchase. He came in said hello and grinned. He said “OK, OK.” The customer laughed and Papa echoed his “hoho”. But then Papa decided, although he usually doesn’t worry about the mood his customers are in, that he wanted to know why this guy was so cheerful. And the man said “Well now I can say I have the whole world in my pocket!” Papa was happy when the man closed the door behind him. We still have plenty of pencil sharpeners, which have pictures of various things on them. Who knows what they might inspire our customers to do. Anyway, we had a good laugh over this strange hermit of a fellow.

It’s late now and I must think about getting lunch together. I’ll write in more detail next time. I just ask you to please write soon and repeat what you said in the letters that have probably gotten lost. The last letter we had from you is dated 10 June.

I hug you most eternally,

Mutti

Helene and Vitali are hungry for both news and food. Helene probably could never have received enough news from her family, but in reality she wasn’t receiving all of the letters that had been sent, and there was often a long time lag between the sending and receiving. They had little money to pay for whatever food was available in the markets. So they made light of their meager meals and imagine they were eating rare delecacies (see January 29 post). It’s hard to imagine how they survived on what little income that came in from selling stationery supplies and repairing fountain pens. No wonder Vitali began his metaphysical career in the back of the store. If you do a search for “globe pencil sharpeners 1930s German” you can see the type of item mentioned.

July 18

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A letter from Helene in Vienna to her nephew Paul Zerzawy in San Francisco:

Vienna, 18 July 1941

Dear Paul! I took stock of things today, but it’s pretty sad. I have written 48 letters to the children since the beginning of the year, but I have received only 10. It is 4 dozen letters: 1) I have not included letters of a different date when they were sent on the same day but in one envelope, 2) letters to you, Hilda, the Zentners, the Schillers, etc. when they were sent to your separate addresses. As you see, my writing business is passive and it must bring up feelings in you about 1870. I am turning to you therefore because I am looking for some sort of resolution. The problem is as you see not coming from me. Of the 10 letters I’ve gotten from the children, the first 7 came closed and they appeared regularly in the first 7 weeks of the year. The other 3 appeared in intervals of 3 months. Since the last 2 were filled with matters of our emigration and made up for the prospect of not getting any mail, we were able to endure this unpleasant situation rather more easily. But since this hope turned out to be fallacious, the lack of letters is appearing twice as painful to me at this point. Do you think that fate has let itself play a bad trick on us? Why? We were so close to getting our goal in life, our happiness and our bliss, come to fruition. We have heard that the children can obtain something in Washington to cause the embassy in Berlin to give us an exit visa. At some point the documents would have to be deposited and this does seem plausible and I don’t think it’s “Bonkes” (a technical term for non-Aryan fairy tales). Please take steps to make sure this happens. It is very very urgent and please let us know if you can’t, where we can turn. About 100 people did get permission to emigrate to Cuba but as we’ve already written, we decided to refrain from such a request because there are new kinds of bother and annoyance with us and apparently doing this requires putting up a certain sum for a deposit. But perhaps you know more about these possibilities over there than the religious community here does. Please Paul, could you take an interest in this and get us some news?

I hope that you are all doing well and I request that you send my best greetings to everybody. Hugging you and greeting you in the best way I can.

Helen

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Their July 15 departure date has come and gone and Helene and Vitali are back at the drawing board. They have given up their business and gotten rid of most of their possessions. Having culled to the bare necessities they could take in the few kilos of luggage they were allowed to take on their journey, they now have very few clothes and resources left. They find themselves right back where they began their efforts to emigrate two years earlier. But the paperwork and bureaucracy are virtually insurmountable at this point. There are rumors of ways to expedite the process and Helene places her confidence in her nephew to make it happen. As I read through all the letters, I think about how this responsibility must have weighed on Paul. Although he had been a successful attorney in Europe, in the U.S. he has no resources, credentials, and few language skills to tackle these virtually impossible obstacles. He must have felt helpless and a failure — wanting so much to help his beloved aunt and her husband escape, but being unable to do so.

Helene mentions 1870 as a memorable year for Paul and perhaps herself. Neither had been born yet. Since she is writing this letter on July 18 from Austria which has been annexed by Germany, she is probably referring to a momentous date in European history: Napoleon III declared war on Prussia on July 19, beginning the the Franco-Prussian War. Germany won the war in 1871 and emerged far more powerful. (The only other events I could find that might have been of interest to them both: the concert hall in Vienna that housed the Vienna Philharmonic opened in January and Charles Dickens died in June. In terms of dates of personal importance, Paul Zerzawy’s father Julius was born on September 9, 1870.)

July 17

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Today we have another Red Cross postcard from Helene’s nephew, POW Erich Zerzawy in eastern Siberia, to his siblings in Brüx, Bohemia. We had trouble deciphering one sentence so it’s incomplete.

Beresowka 19/VII 17.

 My dear ones!

Today it is possible for me, Erich, to write to you more or less in confidence. A comrade is taking this with him when he reports to work. I am fine as I already wrote you yesterday. …Kättl… and I have not written back to her yet, but I will do that.

Sincere greetings and kisses from
Erich

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When Roslyn translated the first sentence of this card, I thought we would learn something more about Erich’s situation since he could write “in confidence.” However, he is no more informative than in any of his other letters. Was he out of the habit? Did he run out of room? Did he not want to worry his family? Given the censorship stamp, perhaps after that first line he realized that it would be sent the same way as all the others.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, it amazes me that Erich’s cards got to their destination - he never includes a street address. Brüx (now Most) wasn’t a big city, but it had more than 20,000 inhabitants! According to the JewishGen Communities Database, in 1910 there were about 870 Jews living there. This reminds me of one of Helene’s letters to her children from Istanbul in 1946 (see March 4 post). Having had no contact with them in more than three years, she had no current address and sent many letters to places Eva and Harry no longer lived. The letters went undelivered and were ultimately returned. It had been her experience that a letter sent to a city would ultimately find its way to the proper recipient. In another letter, Helene marveled that a letter sent to Vitali in Vienna with no street address arrived at the destination — Vienna had a population of almost 2 million at that time. Not surprisingly then, Helene was unimpressed by the American postal service.

July 16

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Today’s letter from 1944 to Harry’s sister Eva is from his commanding officer. We saw a letter from 1945 from this same officer on June 18, sent from a different APO. Between 1944 and 1945, Good was promoted from Major to Lieutenant Colonel.

HEADQUARTERS
83D QM Bn Mobile
APO 928

16 July, 1944

SOMEWHERE IN THE SOUTHWEST PACIFIC AREA

Miss Eva M. Lowell
3494 Twenty-First Street
San Francisco, California

Dear Miss Lowell:

Your brother, Private Harry Lowell, joined our battalion headquarters staff as a Supply Clerk in May, 1944.

Since being here in the Southwest Pacific, your brother has been awarded the Asiatic Pacific Ribbon, the Bronze Star, and the Good Conduct Medal.

Your brother is doing a fine job and you and your community has every reason to feel proud of your brother. 

Bruce A. Good
BRUCE A. GOOD
Major, QMC
Commanding

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Harry jokes in his letter of July 13, 1945 that the letter from his colonel should be framed. At first I thought he was referring to this letter, but it must have been the one from June 18, 1945. Why did he send this letter? I recall my mother saying that someone Harry served with was interested in dating her. Perhaps it was Major Good who wrote this hoping to get in her good graces?

July 15

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Today was the day Helene and Vitali were to have boarded the ship to America. Instead, they found themselves still in Vienna. Due to the disappointment, Helene confused the date when typing the letter. From the contents, it’s clear she wrote it on July 15 -- as I assume Paul Zerzawy wrote in pencil to clarify. Paul often noted the arrival date on letters he received.

Vienna, 15. April 1941 (in pencil: July? Arrived August 5)

My dear children! It’s more than 30 degrees in the shade [86 degrees Fahrenheit] and it’s pretty extreme when you don’t know whether you’re a man or a woman. I do in fact know that we should have been on a ship today had things lined up right both in heaven and on earth, but we are doing nothing but wiping sweat from our brow. I just came from one of those paths from which the devil must have been responsible. I went with Papa. Result? “And here, poor fool, I stand once more; No wiser than I was before.” Papa who apparently thought that he hadn’t run around enough yet, said good-bye to me so that I could prepare the meal for him and he decided to keep wandering around in an attempt to gather memories of his existence in Vienna.

Yesterday there was a terrible thunderstorm. For us it was a grandiose nature spectacle; for others whose nerves reacted differently, spent a fear-filled sleepless night. We, however, were ecstatically breathing in large gulps of the air that had been cleaned by the storm, enjoying it to the fullest. How appropriate, I want to Züge! [a pun meaning both to board a train and to breathe] When there are temperatures like this, it is not really much of a pleasure to travel, but perversely we seem to be assessing it differently, because we are really looking forward to it. We would really just like to know when, where, and where to. To find this out, we have both needed to hurry up. But the heat paralyzed me – otherwise I would have been behaving like a volcano  -- Etna and Vesuvius could have learned from me.

Since it’s really not sure yet when we will be able to grace the Western Hemisphere with our presence, I am going to switch over to waiting for the mail again. Get started! A few days ago, it looked like I would be able to get the mail myself, but the storm was so bad that that idea went away as soon as it showed up.

What did that old shoe maker say? Oh, don’t ignore it. Bravo. Today in my dream, a cavalry officer known to me - well this is to amuse you - well, he did a somersault with his horse and he did it in a goldfish pond. I don’t think I’ll have to do a dangerous jump to entertain you.

Until then, many letters will be written. I’m at 114, how about you?

Many, many unnumbered kisses from the old world. Greetings to everyone, whose names I will not list because it would probably cost too much to mail. Please don’t forget anybody.

Helen

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Helene is still hopeful that all will work out despite the delay. I so admire her resilience. She will not lose hope that she will see her children soon. She is full of puns and word play. As usual, the quotation is from Part I of Goethe’s Faust: “Da steh ich nun, ich armer Tor, und bin so klug als wie zuvor.”

I assume it was not a coincidence that the sentence about getting the mail herself included the words “helen können” -- a play on her own name. Helene gets right back to letter writing, continuing to number her missives to keep track of how many make it to their destination. At the same time, her kisses remain numerous but unnumbered.

July 14

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Today’s postcard from soldier Erich Zerzawy is the only one I have before he was captured and was sent as a prisoner of war to Siberia. The postmark gives us no information about where he was serving.

Address:
Zerzawy Siblings
Brüx
Bohemia

---

14. July.16.

My dear ones!

My card today is written in the presence of the enemy. We have been in the position since last night. I am doing great. The excitement and familiarity are a thing of the past. It’s a strange feeling to be in the position, but for me there’s also pride and confidence. I’ll try to write to you every day so you won’t worry. One thing I am glad about is that now I will get news from you again. Greet all those who ask about me and my best to you. Sincere kisses

Erich

July 13

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New Guinea
July 13, 1945

Dear Sis,

As I mentioned in my last letter to Hilda, I will be evacuated to the States as soon as the next boat leaves from here. In that letter I also mentioned that you had nothing to worry about, as far as my physical condition was concerned; I just need a change of air, that’s all. I guess you have received Colonel Good’s letter by now and I presume that you had it framed and put it on the mantlepiece, ahem, that letter must be a pip, I am sure.

For the last thirty days I have been living the life of Riley – clean sheets, mattress, pajamas, etc. However, I’ll be glad when I get out of the hospital atmosphere; this has been the first time that I stayed in a hospital, and I know it is also the last time (unless somebody breaks my neck when I come back). I, for a change, am now going through the experience of not getting any mail; by gosh, I don’t like it – especially now. I am very glad that I’ll be able to take some of the load off your shoulders (ADDENDUM: “you great big, beautiful doll”); you’ve been doing your and my share of good work while I have been over here, unable to be of help because of the great distance. Get ready for a big conference as soon as I return; I have been doing a lot of planning and I want to compare notes with you. As soon as I arrive, I’ll get in touch with you to let you know where I’ll be staying. In all probability I’ll be granted a furlough after a while.

Well, it’s no use to write anymore, as I’ll be talking things over with you over the dinner table. I am looking forward to seeing you and am anxious to meet your husband. Give my best regards to all the folks and tell them that I’ll be seeing them soon.

Love,
Harry

P.S. Don’t write anymore letters, please.

---

Harry’s mock newspaper headline alludes to the U.N. Conference that took place in San Francisco. When I was looking at old newspapers in search of the article posted on July 9, many of the June newspaper headlines were about the U.N., including a copy of the U.N. Charter in one edition of the paper.

We saw Lieutenant Colonel Good’s letter in the June 18 post and Harry’s follow-up letter to Hilda on June 20 to allay the family’s fears that the first letter caused when it arrived.

Without going into specifics, Harry assures his sister Eva that upon his return he will be able to help with their efforts to bring their mother to San Francisco from Istanbul. As we saw in the July 10 post, at this point Helene is interned in a hotel, unable to walk freely through the city, and having no resources to make her way to the U.S.

In Harry’s “addendum,” he quotes the title of a 1911 song that was featured in several films and sung by many artists.

July 12

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Helene wrote this letter just 3 days before she and Vitali were to have boarded a ship in Lisbon for the United States. Her happiness and hope of a few weeks earlier are gone (see May 29 post), replaced with a fatalism and unease. She writes to Hilda in English, but not with the fluency we see in her letters sent from Istanbul 5 years later. I have edited today’s letter a bit for clarity.

Vienna, July 12. 1941

Dearest Hilda!

I was philanthropical enough to advertise this dangerous letter to you in the last one to the children. Hoping to have plentiful chats with you very soon, I deferred the answer to your charming letter from 12 April. Your letters gave me a great enjoyment, and feeling myself unable to write to you in the same manner, I waited, waited and waited. Indeed, I believed I would have occasion to embrace you in a short time, but our joy was premature. The Lord takes care that trees don’t grow into the heaven. My fatalism entreats of God to be a good man, and the idea that we all are marionettes only, helps us to let things slide. I gave up the eruptions of my temperament at such opportunities and remain silent. Of course, this silence is external but inside, the volcano bubbles. For some weeks, we have lived in a room which has more resemblance to a removal business than to a sitting-room. A pillar, shaped by our luggage, is the most remarkable furniture. No wonder that the scene in my dreams always is of the station or a waiting room in the station, but I never saw the railway in my recent dreams. I feel the inconvenience of a great voyage with insufficient possibilities. My neck and legs become stiff and I have a foretaste of the dreams of future. The most disagreeable thing is that I only dream this unpleasantness. I should prefer the reality of tired extremities and a transient Genickstarre [stiff neck] as a reward for being united with my children, and seeing you and all I want to see again and those I don’t know personally but wishing to know them. Once I read a story of a Schlemiel, who had never fallen in love, but he always dreamed about accidents. He became a father of an illegitimate child - in the dream of course - he gets condemned on account of permitting an abortion -- the poor fellow never had had a sweetheart. With similar feelings I am awakening.

Vitali has compassion for me and advised to write to you in German. What a glorious idea! But for the next time. This letter must leave. Too much softening of the brain it has caused. Forgive me, darling, that always you must be my victim. But I know that my children, including Paul, are for the most part with you and therefore you know most about us.

I love you more than you can imagine, and I am happy at the thought of seeing you. For now, I am sitting at the station, waiting for railroad, not knowing what to do with my arms and legs. I kiss you. Please send Nathan my best wishes for you both. Vitali just now is hunting for food. I wait for him with impatience and a great deal of hunger. Wishing you a good repast, I remain your crazy, foolish, mad, silly, idiotic, weak-minded, imbecile (I am sorry, I didn’t find more synonyms in my dictionary) loving

Helen

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 I found this quotation attributed to Carl Jung:
“No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.”

July 11

Today we have 2-1/2 letters from a friend of Helene’s from Vienna. They appear to be from the same person, although the ones from 1953 look and sound very different from the one written three years earlier. In letters Helene wrote from 1939-1941 (see January 28, February 25, March 26, May 4 and May 30 posts), she mentions two different friends named Paula, one who seemed to visit often. I assume this is the same woman.

When my friend Roslyn translated these letters, I finally understood why Helene and her children hung on to the belief that they would see Vitali again one day.

Vienna 11 July, 1950

Our dear little Helen,

Once again, it is a long time since we’ve heard from you.  We have written two letters to you, but they remain unanswered.  We have no explanation as to why you don’t write to us or even answer our letters.  Today, we actually have good news.  We haven’t given up searching for Vitali and researching this, even though it doesn’t seem humanly possible.  Yesterday, we received word that he is alive and knows how you and the children are doing.  But he can’t come home, or to you, right away.  It will take some time, but it will happen.  But surely it will only be a fraction of the time that has already passed since 1945.  You know his capabilities and they will help him keep up on whatever interests him.  We must stop doing further research, because it costs a lot of money, which we don’t have at the moment.  As soon as we are doing better, we will get back to the search and we will succeed in finding out where exactly he is.  We need time and money, so please be patient, but it will happen.  At least you do know that he is alive; that is a lot.  Now you know what to think about and you don’t need to be plagued by doubts.  He is working in his profession there, and one day he will show up here.  Pray to God that this happens soon.  We do hope to be able to make progress not too long from now.  You know your life has meaning and that you did not go to America and wait, not knowing, in vain.  We are very happy that we finally have some positive news.

How are you doing otherwise?  Well, we hope.  It’s getting almost unbearable again here, the prices are going up so much that no mortal can afford them.  And, as before, there is war psychosis.

Annemarie got a good report card, and in the fall she starts secondary school (Hauptschule).  The school is not far from the apartment, so she’s got a short way to school.  She will go to the school associated with the teachers’ college.  It is supposedly quite strict there.  She will learn a lot and have to be industrious. But she will push on, and succeed.

Dear Helen, please write soon so that we will have news from you and share your joy. 

Warmest greetings from all of us, and kisses from Annemarie

Your
Paula, Annemarie and Franz

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At first, Roslyn and I thought that the letters from 1953 were a single letter, but it appears they were written a few weeks apart and have different censorship stamps. There is an interesting blog on Mail Censorship in Allied Occupied Austria 1945-1953 which explains the continuation of mail censorship long after the war had ended.

Vienna, 2.July.53.

My dear dear Helene! Please don’t be mad that I haven’t written for so long, but I have waited for the packages to arrive so I could let you know that everything had arrived and what you wrote - I will dye the costume and it will look good on Annemiechen. We three thank you very much for it and I will still have the possibility to thank you as soon as our dear Vitali comes to Vienna then he will stay with us until he has decided what he is going to do but I believe he will stay with us in Vienna and we will have the great luck that you will come to us again. My dear Helene I can only tell you that it will all be good for you when Vitali is here and believe that he is coming now, he is doing much better. We don’t know anything about his relatives and they really wouldn’t help and also he is not recognized as a Turk anymore so you will understand that he does not want people to write to him. We know he’s alive and he has brought it along so far that he will be able to come soon and that is the main thing. You know his talents and his capabilities and he has to do everything the way he sees fit now but dear Helene don’t doubt then if you did that you would not have the strength to keep going. I see him often at night and he’s packing his suitcase and you know that he can show himself. I am so happy that I will be able to send you the letter that he is healthy and safe and sound and that he has arrived and this time will come faster than we think.

My dear little Helen, we are just sad that you have it so hard that you have gone through enough, but when the need is the greatest then God’s blessings is closest. Believe that. You will know that Vitali is informed about everything that is going on with you one would only hurt him if we would do anything that he does not want. He sees everything better. Maybe you can write to his relatives that you have the feeling that Vitali is alive. Maybe they’ll think differently but I don’t think you can really promise yourself much from them.

My dear, now I will write to you about us. The little one is really excited because she will probably be able to leave. We have found a place for her where it is not so expensive that is out in the country and that’s near Peierbach [about 100 miles from Vienna], and my husband and I will eat very simply so that we can put the money away which we need for our child and vegetables are becoming cheaper now and potatoes and we can fill up on those and it doesn’t cost so much and Annemiechen needs more because she is very tall and now in the age where she’s always hungry and there dear God will help us as well to get through this and I tell you my husband is an angel. He’s such a sweetheart and he makes a sacrifice. What my husband does is not to be described. His love and his thought is just that he wants to make things easier for us so I don’t have so many troubles and he does without everything dear Helen, yes I thank God every day for this good person and for the child that they are all so sweet together and I really couldn’t complain about anything. Everything is good, know that life is quite a struggle. When Franz has something secure, maybe it will be easier to take. But that will come and as soon as Vitali is with us we will discuss everything together and how to do everything there my dear Helene. Keep hanging on. The evening of life will be a little nicer for all of us.

My dear Helene, I must now finish knitting a cardigan for Annemie because then she has something for when the evening is cooler. When you have time, then write and when we find out anything from Vitali how far away he is, then we will let you know, but don’t be misled. The main thing is that he is alive and that he is coming and you can bear everything else. So my dear I thank you for the precious things you sent, but I ask you don’t spend any money you must have to work so hard to get it and we love you just so and we are happy when you write to us because our friendship is so deep that it is impossible for anyone to destroy it. It’s very hot here now and we are going on Sunday morning to the Vienna Woods and it’s very nice there.

My dear Helene, now I must go shopping and today there are mushrooms and potatoes and everything is cheaper if we buy it from the farmers than at the market hall. Many many thousand kisses from all of us many greetings from the Krell family.

As soon as I know anything I will write to you again. Kisses

Paula

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[note at bottom: Received 12. August.53]

...that you are followed the night every night and that we have debts. Dear Helene, you write about Vitali, he’s already left there, he really ought to be here by now but everything gets put off, even with Vitali and believe me we are waiting as enthusiastically as you, we are really missing him, because we know that it will be better for you and then you can come back to Vienna because Vitali will want to settle here because it’s been much nicer here but don’t be in despair — as long as we know that he is alive and then there is no reason to be sad or despairing. Maybe we can find out something more. But now we need to wait. There’s nothing we can do because we don’t know where he is. I have seen a few times the way he is packing his suitcase. You know his talents and he will get together what he needs and now I have no more worries about him. Someday we will get there because he is coming to us first.

Dear Helene, I thank you for the packages. Some of them aren’t here yet but that always takes longer than I think. But really don’t send anything more for us it’s really so hard to send something because you have to pinch pennies too and you must have pity on me because you have it so hard too. Vitali knows about it too but he can’t really move around yet the way he would like to. As soon as he is away from Turkey then everything will be so much faster. We just have to wait, everything takes time. My dear Annemie is coming to Vienna on August 19 and now I can start fattening her up again.

My dear little Helen, how much I would like to have you here, it would be so much nicer. Franz also says it would be so much better for you here. Here you would be able to get the compensation for reparations and get everything replaced which you lost. But also you would get a pension which you could live on. You should have put in for it as I told you. All your relatives have done that and are getting it. Yes, I think even when Vitali is here he needs to report all of his losses.

My dear little Helen, I can also tell you that friends have sent me a document detailing how I helped her but it did take quite awhile. Dear Helene, my husband will also write soon because he runs around every day and when he works at home he is also the one who repairs all our shoes so that we can save some money for other things. I must tell you that this person can do everything and I thank our dear God for the grace that I have gotten this good man. He could not be better than he is.

So my dear I need to close now because I want to take the letter to the post office. Dear good Helene, hang in there and it cannot take too much longer until our dear Vitali comes. I tell you as always that Vitali is coming and then you will not have that dark mood anymore and for your nerves it will be good. Just believe in it. All bad things do come to an end.

With many many greetings and kisses I am ending my letter and many greetings and a kiss from my husband.

Paula-Franz

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These letters give me an appreciation for the clarity and humor in my family’s writing. Paula writes in stream of consciousness – almost one long sentence with little or no punctuation. Paula sounds absolutely certain that she has been in touch with Vitali. Can we believe her? She writes in 1953 that she sees “him often at night and he’s packing his suitcase,” which is clearly a dream. Is it all a dream? It may be that we will never know.

Today’s letters illustrate the trauma of war — no one was untouched and the effects could last years and even generations. In 1953, eight years after the war ended, Paula and her family have lived in an occupied country. Life is difficult and they barely have what they need to survive day to day. And yet, she tells Helene how much happier she will be returning to Vienna. A wish that as soon as Vitali somehow reappears and Helene has joined him in Vienna, they would return to the lives they left behind.

July 10

Link to Family Tree to understand family relationships.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Arthur Fishsohn,
For American Joint Distribution Committee,
Istanbul

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

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

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

July 9

Link to Family Tree to understand family relationships.

 Six-Year War Silence Broken

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Possible clues to determine the date of the article:

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

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

• Eva Lowell – before January 1945, then Goldsmith

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

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

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

• Eva’s “recent” graduation was 1943

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

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

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

July 8

Link to Family Tree to understand family relationships.

Today we see three letters from POW Erich Zerzawy in Siberia to his family:

Sender: E. F. Gfrt Row 200/74.
Erich Zerzawy
Beresowka
Eastern Siberia

Address:
Zerzawy siblings
Brüx
Bohemia

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8/VII.17

My dear ones!

I was happy to get your cards, one from 20/IV and even another from 4/XII. I am very happy that you are well. Praise God of course. I hope all is well with you in all aspects of life. What do you think of the new political party? Are you satisfied? As far as I am concerned, there is nothing to worry about. I am fine and the first 50 [rubles?] which I finally received will be very useful for supplies and such. It is one of the two sent by Spassker [?] — I’m not sure which one it is. I reclaimed Papa’s #51205. I am curious as to which it is. It’s raining now and it has been for 48 hours without a break. That’s an odd occurrence.

Your Erich would love to write more, but he can’t.

Written along the side edge:
Sincere greetings to all of you from me.

---

Address: Miss Helene Löwy
Vienna I
Salzgries 10

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Beresowka 9./VII.17.

Dear Helene!

It’s not at all nice the way you just ignore me! I haven’t gotten a single line from you. You didn’t even write once from Brüx which was more an etc. You’ll have a lot to make up. Nothing has changed between us and it’s because of you. And that I am still the old one, you should recognize that I am inconsolable that the field post package from you that was sent back should have arrived a bit earlier. Or at least Mr Morkale could have waited awhile. Sincere greetings and kisses from
Erich

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To: Mr Robert Zerzawy
Brüx
Bohemia

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B’ka  29/VII.17. 

Dear Robert!

By chance I got together with your dear brother, which made both him and me extremely happy. I found out that you are happy and well. Erich looks good and since I haven’t seen him for awhile, he has grown. I hope you are healthy and doing well, as is the case for me.
Greetings from your pal.

E. Ledlauken [?]

So you see that I am here too,
Erich

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A few thoughts:

In the July 8 letter to his siblings, Erich is chatty and talks about current events. He assures everyone that they shouldn’t worry about him.

In a card he writes a day later to his aunt Helene, he is playful and teasing about letters and packages that haven’t arrived — showing us that Helene’s letters to her nephews were likely as full of fun and affection as were her later letters to her children. Of the three Zerzawy brothers, Erich seems to have had a sense of humor closest to hers. Paul’s letters were mostly very straightforward and businesslike and Robert’s were loving, emotional, and kind. When I originally saw this postcard, it was the first time I thought of my grandmother’s life as a young woman, even though she didn’t marry until she was in her 30s. I had a sense of her childhood in Bilin from the stories she wrote; I had a sense of her as a wife and mother from her letters and my own mother’s stories about her childhood. But here was evidence of my grandmother as a single woman in Vienna, along with an unfamiliar address in Vienna. We saw another letter to Helene in the January 28 post — a letter from 1918 from her nephew Paul Zerzawy.

It continues to amaze me that in wartime soldiers, and even POWs, received packages from home. Although, clearly many of the packages never made it to their destination, or were not as full as when they were sent. It’s also impressive that mail from POWs arrived when addressed with so little information — Erich’s letters home to Brux to his family merely give the town and the last name. According to Wikipedia, the city had a population of about 50,000 in 1920.

Finally, the card sent from later in the month shows us what a small world it was, even in far-flung Siberia. A friend of Erich’s brother Robert finds himself in the same place.

July 7

Link to Family Tree to understand family relationships.

I often think about the events and changes in the world that my grandmother experienced – no one would have imagined the life she led, beginning in a small town in Bohemia and ending up in San Francisco, with a full life and several years of nightmarish hardship along the way.

I suppose one might say the same when looking back at almost anyone who lived a long life. I’m sure that as a child my mother Eva never imagined the life she would live and the places she would go.

After a childhood in Vienna, several months in Istanbul to obtain a passport, and completing high school in San Francisco, Eva received a nursing degree in 1943 and went to work. As we have seen in letters from her brother Harry in the army, she had dreams of doing her part for the war effort, or at least of traveling the world. After she married, she continued her education and received an MA in Education from San Francisco State College (now University) in the late 1950s. [More than 20 years later I studied in the Counseling program at SF State and had a course with one of the same professors!]

The MA degree made her eligible to work as a public health nurse for the city of San Francisco, which she did for 20 years through the 1960s, 1970s, and into the early 1980s. As with her mother, Eva had a front row seat to the cultural changes, since she was working with city residents who needed health care and assistance. She made home visits, worked in the public health center clinic, was a school nurse, gave health education presentations. In the 1960s, she made home visits in the Haight Ashbury (I don’t know whether there was a disconnect between a nurse with a European accent who had a strict code of conduct and high expectations working with hippies during the summer of love, etc.). She saw huge changes in the social safety net: many of the single room occupancy buildings that provided cheap housing for many of her clients were razed to make way for new high-rises and offices downtown and changes in mental health care. As both a city resident and an employee, she was shocked by the events of November 1978 – the mass murders at Jonestown and the murders of Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone (and Dianne Feinstein becoming mayor). By the time she retired in July of 1984, the AIDS epidemic had a name and was in full force.

July 6

Link to Family Tree to understand family relationships.

Today we have another letter from Helene to her nephew Paul Zerzawy in New York. Her children are in Istanbul in order to obtain passports to allow them to travel to the US.

 Vienna, 6 July 1939

Dear Paul, do you know how many letters there are now to which you owe me an answer? I don’t mean this in a bad way, I can’t really imagine that it’s a matter of time or that you don’t have the inclination to write to me. But I am also considering that you have other readers and I hope at least that I am pretty high on the list. This jargon must remind you of Zelinkagasse and your previous domain. Across the street from there now is some kind of financial office which has invited me to come by for a visit. When I am there, I will do a little wave to you, at least mentally. By the way, I met in Meistersingerstrasse recently (now you’d probably like to know where that is), it used to be known as Mahlerstrasse, I met the Pomweiser [?]. He asked about how you were doing. He was upset that he hadn’t heard from you. I had to come up with a plausible reason for that, because he asked me for your address so he could write to you. There’s no reason to worry, but partly to amuse you and partly to give other reporters a chance to write about Vitali, I am enclosing an article of the Volkszeitung in English translation. In the last letter I sent to you a copy of our registration cards. What do you think about the number 53? We don’t have very many front men and I believe that it would be our turn soon if we were in possession of an affidavit. Can you make it plausible to our relatives that we would not be a burden on anyone? Vitali’s achievements are unsurpassed and I wanted to ask you to go to some newspaper and ask maybe based on the articles and the material I am sending with this letter and the brochures you asked for so we could have current articles and information about Vitali’s work and that might help us to get the affidavit. It would be wonderful for me if we did not have to bother our relatives who have already done so much for us. As soon as the children are over there, you will get beautiful postcards from me.

For today, just lots of kisses
Helen

Say hello to the Schillers.

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According to the Zerzawy family tree, Paul’s law office in Vienna was located on Zelinkagasse. In looking up this address, I found his home address on Geusaugasse. I was delighted to discover that he lived just around the corner from Helene and her family – my map program says the two homes were just 400 feet apart!

As I read Helene’s letters, I often think about how disorienting life must have been. Life was growing ever more dangerous, rules and bureaucracy changed daily, the country she lived in was now Germany, and even the street names changed – in this case from the name of a Jewish composer from Bohemia to the name of an opera by Wagner. Helene must have had a complicated relationship with Wagner’s music – he was one of her favorite composers, yet was known for his antisemitism and was a favorite of Hitler. Helene named her daughter Eva after the heroine in the Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.

The newspaper article that Helene mentions might “amuse” Paul was the hateful article we saw in the April 7 post. Helene continues to be hopeful that Vitali’s occupation would be accepted and thrive in San Francisco.

Meistersingerstrasse no longer appears on a map of Vienna. According to a website of Vienna street names Mahlerstrasse was known as Meistersingerstrasse from 1938-1946 and then reverted back to its previous name.

In the July 1 post, we saw the document Helene sent to Paul about their number of 53 on the Turkish waiting list to emigrate.

Possibly Paul Zerzawy’s law office on Zelinkagasse

July 5

Link to Family Tree to understand family relationships.

Today’s letter is the reply to Helene’s query in the June 21 post.

Special Registry Office, Arolsen

6 July, 1955

Dear Mrs. Cohen,

As an answer to your letter of June 21 re searching for your husband Chain Cohen, I must inform you sincerely that my office has no information.  The International Search Service in Arolsen has only the information that the State Police in Vienna took your husband to the Buchenwald Concentration Camp near Weimar on November 5, 1943.

Since it is possible that your husband died in the Buchenwald area after the concentration camp was liberated, I recommend that you contact the Registry Office in Weimar/Thuringia in the Soviet occupied region of Germany.

I am extremely sorry that I cannot provide more exact information.

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The Arolsen Archives were formerly known as the International Tracing Service. The office was set up after World War II specifically to deal with questions about the whereabouts of prisoners sent to concentration camps.  In preparing today’s post, I went to the online Arolsen Archives and found documents related to Vitali that I had never seen before. A comment handwritten on the back of one document from 1948 (presumably made in response to one of my grandmother’s queries) said “This person appeared on lists of Liberated Prisoners (compiled by the American Army)”. In several documents in my possession, I had seen references to the fact that Vitali had been reported alive at the time of liberation, but I had never seen it attributed to the American Army. However, I assume “compiled” means they wrote down the testimony of a presumed eyewitness, so I am no closer to an answer than my mother and grandmother were. It is heartbreaking to think how often their hopes for answers were dashed.

When I was young, my mother told me what a brilliant man her father was. She said he spoke around 10 languages. I always thought she must have been exaggerating — although my mother was always completely truthful. One document in the Arolsen Archives corroborated her claim — listing the (9) languages Vitali spoke: Turkish, French, English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Persian (Farsi?), and German.

It was not unusual for people in those days to speak multiple languages, although I think Vitali had a longer list than most. It was useful, particularly in cosmopolitan areas, to be able to communicate with the wide variety of people passing through. Toward the end of Harry’s life, he was fascinated by the memoirs of Elias Canetti, which he read both in the original German and in English translation. I read the first volume of Canetti’s memoir to see what caught Harry’s interest. I’m guessing part of it was feeling a kinship to Canetti for being the son of a Sephardic Jew in western Europe and the other was to read his memories of Vienna in the decade before Harry was born.

Harry followed in his father’s footsteps, fascinated by any publication in any language. As a student at UC Berkeley after the war, he studied Russian and I think Japanese. He considered pursuing a career in the foreign service. By the end of his life, Harry had amassed a library of hundreds of books in dozens of languages. I sometimes wondered whether that was also a way of hiding in plain sight – an interest in multiple languages could hide the fact that he had not been born in the US.

Harry kept his father’s Turkish-German phrasebook. According to the Wikipedia entry on the publisher, Meyers Bibliographisches Institut published German language phrasebooks from the 19th to early 20th century. The phrasebook I have is embossed with Vitali’s initials.

Genealogists and family historians all recommend periodically searching for answers to unanswered questions. More information and documents are being digitized every day.

July 4

Link to Family Tree to understand family relationships.

I believe that the 2 pages below are part of a single letter, although the pages were not obviously together. So page 2 could actually belong to another letter entirely. If taken together, this is a letter from someone named Leo, probably Leo Schauer, Paul’s father’s third wife Eliza’s brother. The letter would have been written to Paul Zerzawy in New York City.

Prague 4 July 1939

Dear Paul!

Up until now I have only sent greetings to you from all of us through your mother.

There have been some regulations that have been announced in the last few days for the conscription of securities and emergency bank notes. The reporting forms for this matter are to be filled out personally by the owners who are in Germany and this is done by affidavit or declaration.

Otto, who is a recent husband and in his honeymoon weeks is finding no time for any extra kind of work and he leaves the office and goes home as soon as possible, asks me to write to you about this and I am happy to take the opportunity to brief you on it.

The mortgage period actually ran out a few weeks ago but has been extended for 3 months. Therefore, you do not have to do anything about this. Just so that the emergency bank notes do not expire and lose their value completely, you need to send the following letter to the Union Bank:

“In your bank with you, I have the amount of 120,000 Czech krone and 3-3/4 are in emergency bank notes on deposit and there is a mortgage of 60,000 Czech krone.

I hereby communicate to you that I have changed my legal address from Prague and today my new address is Paul Z c/o Cooper, 718 West 178th Street, Apt. 44, New York City.”

We read all your reports and we know about everything. Nothing new has happened here. Anny is still waiting for her Gestapo permission to emigrate, but we think that should be taken care of in a few days. Doris is writing reports that she is satisfied and happy and she is waiting with great longing for Anny’s arrival. I was in Poděbrad for a few days, which had a very positive influence on your mother’s state of mind and we have decided that we will certainly do this more often so that she not feel so lonely.

[Page 2:]

We haven’t received any direct news yet from Fritz and Hanne but the transport office has already told us that the transport has landed. The passengers are being registered. They are legal emigrants and they are part of the quota. The advantage of this is that people can keep their name and that the documents that they have had up till now will still be valid. Because there have been some possible cases of typhus during the transport, the participants are only let go after several weeks of quarantine and that’s why there is no direct news from them. We hope to get this news soon. According to the reports of Mr. Zwicker from Haifa, the Lift must have already arrived there. We have decided to send this only because the freight to Haifa can be paid in Czech krone here. Now the sender comes with the unpleasant news that according to the latest regulation, the freight to Haifa must be paid in hard currency when it reaches Trieste. This is about 20 pounds and I do not know at all if Fritz would have this amount available there.

I hope to hear good news from your existential question soon and for today with most sincere greetings from all of us

Your Leo

Rud Hanak reports today that he has received a job in his branch (office machines) with a beginning salary of 1000 pesos and he is quite happy about it. You must make sure to date your letter to the bank exactly on the day it is sent!

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I found this letter in an envelope labeled “Otto” which my mother kept (see January 25 post). It was filled with bank documents and letters between Paul and his stepmother’s son in Palestine. I am not certain who Otto was. There is an Otto on the Zerzawy family tree who is some sort of cousin to Paul. According to the tree, he was an officer of Union Bank in Prague, had married in 1922 and divorced at some point. If it is the same Otto, according to this letter he remarried in 1939.  

Paul Zerzawy’s father Julius died early in 1939. His widow Elise is in Poděbrad, a spa town near Prague. Her son Fritz and his wife Hanne have emigrated to Haifa. Other friends and relatives are strewn across the globe. We saw letters from 1940 from Fritz in the January 25 post and from Elise in the February 10 post.

An aside: isn’t the German word for “honeymoon” wonderful?: Flitterwochen

July 3

Link to Family Tree to understand family relationships.

Today we have a letter written from Helene in Vienna to her children Eva and Harry in San Francisco.

 Vienna, 1 July 1941

My dear children! Do you remember how much we once laughed when I asked Dr. W, a friend of Paul’s, how he liked Linz where he had moved to and he replied: “Yes, Linz is a lovely city. You can drive to either side of it, but you don’t realize that until your first year there. The second year you become used to it and you realize that it doesn’t do any good to wish that you could leave. The third year you’re already a fool, and the fourth year you’re a real Linzer native.” I am sort of at that point myself. I don’t know if Dr. W knew then how wonderful it is to have the possibility of driving in both directions. I doubt it. Another advantage he forgot to mention: after only 4 days you get a letter that was mailed from Vienna. That’s how it was at one point. But my membership in the Linz club as it were I can claim because of the condition of never getting any mail, and that I can’t even drive away in one direction. Certainly, our deus ex machina does not think it’s the right moment for this to happen or otherwise he would have already intervened. I wait for him, although I know that he will not appear even one second earlier than planned. He’ll be on time, but always at the last moment! If I were not so terribly worried about you, I would just wait patiently, but the way it is, it is very, very painful and the mail is merciless.

Today is the first day that Papa is an independent gentleman. This morning we gave our successor the keys to the shop. In the beginning of September, the shop will probably come out of its summer hibernation. They say that walls have ears. If they had a mouth too and could talk, they could really amuse many of us. When we were going on a walk through the city yesterday, Vitali showed me a shop that looked even more dusty than ours. It looked like Zwieback! (May it rest in peace.) Papa only goes downstairs to send a letter to you. It’s a real private life! But I [don’t] expect him back soon because many of his acquaintances haven’t said good-bye to him and they will not let him leave unless they can shake his hand. Today they will supposedly issue visas again. We’ll see if we’re included in the group.

I kiss you most fervently and I send you my best greetings.

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We can feel the anticipation and anxiety as Helene and Vitali’s departure date of July 15 nears. The tale of Helene’s nephew Paul’s friend’s experience of Linz makes us feel the claustrophobia and paralysis they’ve felt the past several years in Vienna. It sounds Vienna was feeling like a ghost town, with many stores closed or abandoned. Certainly something we can relate to in the last year when the entire world shut down due to Covid.

In 2017, Vienna’s Jewish Museum had an exhibition in 2017 on Jewish-owned department stores, including Zwieback. According to an article on the exhibit, these stores had disappeared by 1938. On page 257 of this PDF link, you can see a picture of a changing room at Zwieback Department store in 1910.

In the last line, Helene mentions waiting for a visa — we learned in the June 19 post of their giving up their store and that the American Consulate was closed for vacation during the last two weeks of June.

July 2

Link to Family Tree to understand family relationships. 

COMPANY “F”
1ST QUARTERMASTER TRAINING REGIMENT
FORT FRANCIS E. WARREN, WYOMING

2 July 1943

COMMENDATION:
To: ALL MEMBERS OF THIS COMMAND.

We “doo’ed it again. Hats off to our valiant cage ball warriors who last evening walloped a cocky Co. “A” team 2-1/2 - 1-1/2 in a hard-fought tussle which on several occasions verged on the brink of a free-for-all. Capt. Morris, C.O. of our opponents, stood on the sidelines with a wide grin on his face before the game, feeling confident that his charges were going to smash us into the ground and conquer us with little difficulty.

Perhaps his confidence was shaken a bit when the referee proceeded to send 8 men off the field 00 these men were above the 40-player limit; it seems our foxy foe didn’t think that the referee would bother to count the men. It may be well to note that we were able to muster only 37 men for this tilt, but what we did have was sufficient as the final score well indicates.

However, in the first few minutes of the games we were on the defensive, finally succumbing to a cheap ½ point goal. At this point our cagers came to life as an unstoppable juggernaut as we zoomed to a 2-1/2 lead as the half ended. Putting in some reserves to open the last half the 1st Battalion battlers held the upper hand as our weary, battle-scarred men fought desperately to protect our lead. At last we were nicked for a point, but sandwiched between we salvaged ½ point as security. The gun sounded ending the game and we had upset the dope bucket again proving that the rest of the teams had better respect our play. 

Again the heroes were many and it will be impossible to mention them all. But special honors are to be made. Take Chennault for instance; that chubby rascal took things pretty well into his own hands as he went twenty-five yards thru’ the opposition to score. And how about “Skyscraper” Mike O’Brien who was getting his big mitts on that overgrown pill just when it counted. It was a game hearted Champ who inspired our big rally in the first half; ignoring a painful side injury Champ played the last half out, champ that he is. The “Dead End Kids” – Hendrix, Kucab, Lowell, Winters, and Kantor dished out plenty and I’d hate to see what Co. “A”’s sick book looked like this morning.

Good work fella’s. This was another jump toward the championship which we are looking forward to copping. Nevertheless, no matter what the future brings we shant forget this glorious conquest. We pay tribute to the following men who comprised the team last night.

…..Lowell, Harry….

CHARLEY (I’VE GOT A TEAM) LUHN
Cpl. Acting Athletic Director

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When I saw the word “Commendation” at the beginning of this memo, my first reaction was that I was about to learn something important about Harry’s military service. Certainly, helping morale is important – the team’s success and this hilarious memo probably did the trick.  

I found several references to different versions of “cage ball.” It could be a game of volleyball played with a large ball, since Harry wrote of playing volleyball in the regiment in the April 21 and May 3 posts. However, given the number of men on each team, I am guessing it’s closer to “Pushball.” I found an old photo of students playing Cage Ball at Springfield College in Massachusetts.