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Author(s) / Origin of Letter
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Recipient(s) / Relationship to Author(s) / Destination of Letter
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Summary
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Heinz Rosenzweig |
Gisella Nadja Jellinek (herinafter referred to as G. Nadja, cousin of HR, sister of AJ, and niece of GJS) |
In these letters from G. Nadja’s new cousin Heinz, and from G. Nadja’s younger sister, Anna, both then in Czechoslovakia, we see optimism and casual news. For example, Heinz believes that he has the “prospect” to study music in Jerusalem and Anna plans to join a Betar youth group and to start doing gymnastics to improve her figure. But aunt (and surrogate mother) Gisela, living in the Viennese apartment to which she, her husband and parents were forcibly exiled by the Nazis, writes about the stress and struggles of managing the household, feeding her diabetic mother, Berta, and getting sweaters to G. Nadja that she has knit for her. In the cruelest irony, Anna and Gisela, as well as G. Nadja’s father, Hugo, worry for Nadja’s life, but not for their own, much more imminently endangered lives. |
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Although we haven’t met yet, kindest regards from one of your new cousins. I have the prospect to study at the [music] conservatory in Jerusalem, I may even be given a stipend, then I won’t forget my Gisl.
And again, kindest regards and a strong Shalom1, Yours, Heinz Rosenzweig My dear Giserl! I was very happy to receive your dear lines, we were all worried about you. Are you really as well as you write? You could tell me [the truth] quite calmly, you know. We are all well, thank God; dear Daddy looks, touch wood, very good indeed. Bertl became very beautiful too and everyone admires her. I have not heard from Hansi for a couple of months; he still owes me a reply and I believe that he has long since forgotten me. But, you should know that I am not very hurt . Otherwise, I am [ ?ery mi??] and unemployed [?] and I will start doing rhythmic gymnastics now to improve my figure. You know that we have two new cousins. The older (25) lives in Lemberg, the younger in Brünn; he is a little artist in music. I would be very happy if you could get to know them all. |
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[Page 2.] Yesterday I went to the “Misrachim”2 association, but it is too koshe for me and I rather go to Betar.3 So that’s it for today, because dear Bertl also wants to write. Many 100,000 kisses from your dearly loving sister Putzi.4 Dearest Gisa, January 15, 19395 As there is still some space left and I want to use the postage, I am writing only a couple of lines to you to tell you that I have already written a letter last week; hence this is the second message since your last letter. I hope that you will write us again soon and today I asked dear Mrs. Robicek6 to always enclose a reply coupon so that you do not have any expenses with the correspondence. Answer right after receiving the letters, but not always only after you received the second letter, so that you won’t need too much postage and so that you may use one coupon for something else. We are all in good health and we all, especially the dear grandparents7, your father, I and uncle, were very happy to receive your dear letter; in every message your father only writes how happy he [is] to receive your message. In all letters before, he had been wailing that you are his greatest sorrow, and if only he could hear from you. he would be perfectly contented, for with his marraiage, he already won “first prize.” May God give him his happiness. — Yesterday we received a wonderful parcel with charitable gifts from the parents and also Bertherl sent something with it.8 This was very helpful for us, for I sometimes do not know what to cook for grandmother, as she needs much fat, meat and vegetables. I am struggling with the household, running errands, and in addition, I have to look after the house and the laundry, etc. The black pullover and two lighter ones for the summer, have long been ready for you, but how will this ever get to you? Uncle Ludwig and family are still in Sulina9 and they [will] come to see you perhaps only in March. 10,000 heartfelt kisses, Aunt Mom Gisa. |
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Translated by Laura Jockusch; some edits and most footnotes by P. Jellinek;
Footnotes
1. written in Hebrew script
2. Anna is referring to the Mizrachi organization, which is the movement of Religious Zionists. Mizrachi is an acronym for merkaz ruchani (spiritual center) which is what the founder, Rabbi Yitzchak Yaakov Reines, believed the Jewish state could be for the Jewish people. By “too kosher” Anna meant that the organization was too involved with religious observance and learning Torah. Mizrachi was founded in 1902 in Vilna and was then and is still a global movement. See https://mizrachi.org/hamizrachi/mizrachi-the-first-hundred-and-twenty-years/ and other sections of https://mizrachi.org/ for more information.
3. Betar then was the activist and educational youth movement of the Revisionist Zionist organization, which was founded and led by Vladimir (Ze’ev) Jabotinsky in 1925. The Revisionist Zionists were considered “maximalist political Zionists” because they advocated for a Jewish state” comprised of all of British Mandate Palestine, and to be achieved through political means as conceived by Theodor Herzl . But there is much more to this organization’s history, including its belief in the need for Jewish self-defense and for militancy to attain Jewish sovereignty in the land. The following are two sources, among many, of more information, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/revisionist-zionism and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revisionist_Zionism
4. Anna’s familial, diminutive nickname, along with Putzerle. Her middle name of Luchia also led her father, Hugo, especially, to affectionately call her Russsified nicknames of Lussinka, and Lussa, as well as Annuschka and Annuschkerl, based on her first name.
5. The date has to be 1940, and not 1939, because of reference to Hugo’s marriage to Fritzi Fränkel, which took place in October 1939 in Brno.
6. Marianna Robicek was Gisela’s old friend and the conduit n Yugoslavia for letters between Gisela in Vienna and Gisella Nadja in Mandate Palestine.
7. “. . . the dear grandparents. . . “ refers to Siegmund and Berta S. Jellinek, who were Gisella Nadja’s paternal grandparents, and Gisela’ J. S.’s parents.
8. “. . . the parents. . . “ refers to Gisella Nadja’s parents, Hugo Jellinek and his new wife, Fritzi Fränkel, and Bertherl, (as well as Bertl) refer diminutively to Berta, Hugo’s middle daughter and Gisella Nadja’s younger sister, who were then in Brünn.
9. Sulina is a port town in Romania, on the banks of the Black Sea. It is located at the easternmost point of Romania. It is probable that Uncle Ludwig was the brother of Gisela’s J.S.’s husband, Leopold (aka Poldi).
