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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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Anna Jellinek Nadel |
Gisella Nadja Jellinek |
Anna’s long letter provides warm motherly advice and current family information, but also indications of Anna’s partial insulation from the severe deterioration in circumstances facing her family members and all Jews still stuck in Nazi-occupied Europe. Anna reports on the encouraging development of her toddler daughter, Trudy, and her own and her husband’s relatively good circumstances, as welll as that of her brothers, Karl in NYC and Hugo in Brno, Czechoslovakia. Their current fates are contrasted with the life-threatening circumstances of her other siblings: Siegfried, who was deported to Nisko, Poland; Max, suffering in Shanghai and Gisela, their parents, Siegmund and Berta, as well as her husband Leopold, expelled from their homes to Vienna. Anna also writes of her longing and worries for all of her struggling, dispersed family. |
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Vienna, May 22, 1940 My beloved niece Gisa! Unfortunately your letter of 27.3.40 arrived here only on May 15th. And hopefully my lines and my check will reach you in your residence. Your dear letter touched my heart and I am very, very worried about you, mainly that you have acquired a small heart defect through your excessive hard work; well you have enough worries poor thing. It made me feel good that you unburdened your poor heart to me, because believe me, I feel for you like a mother. I too can only really understand you now that I have the grace of having a child myself. I was certainly rough at times, but my heart was always close to you, why not? After all, you are my flesh and blood. Many thanks also for your warm- feeling birthday wishes for my Truderl1. Hopefully they will come true, although I believe that she too does not have a good future. Believe me, dear Giserl, if your God-blessed Mutti were alive, she could not help you either. How many children have lost both their parents now, or were torn apart; look at Hans and Grete; her father was beaten to death in Buchenwald and the poor mother sits in Switzerland, and I am sorry to say, I have the feeling that they will also not see their mother again. [written down the left side of this page]: Please write immediately to dear Max because Aunt Gisa and your Papa are very worried; now you have money, I implore you; write often and immediately. |
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Page 2. So be brave and remember that you are not alone in your fate. By always blaming fate and worrying about it, you are making life even more difficult for yourself. Be happy that you still have your good Pappa and I hear that his present wife is so good and noble to your lovely sisters like their own mother, and I hope that you will still be reunited with all your loved ones. Today there is no good news in the newspaper, but I hope and pray to God that England and France will win and bring this breed with their devilish Adolf to an end. Miron and I are so worried and we can’t sleep for nights; because we are very worried about our new beautiful homeland, as well as about our poor fellow Jews2 I know that you Jews in Palestine, if it should come to that, would fight to the last drop of blood; what we are unfortunately not allowed to do here. I will raise my child as a stalwart Jew and never allow her to speak to a German, for they are bad and mean. The last news I have of our dear ones is from the 15th of March; thank God they are all well and thanks to the competence of the noble Gisa, they have enough to live on. The dear grandmother, so Mrs. Tiefenbrunn wrote me, is busy reading love stories and the dear grandfather still plays checkers very well. I suffer from terrible longing for all my dear ones, |
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Page 3. even though I have such a sweet child and a good husband; [I enjoy] life without them so little. Of so many children, only Gisa3 is left; this poor angel sacrifices herself. Poor Uncle Siegfried was sent out of Vienna with the first transport to Poland and after many hardships fled to Russia, where he is regretfully also not doing well, but he hopes to travel to America soon because he has the affidavit from Karl, and there to meet up with his wife and son Erich. Hopefully it was possible for Aunt Martha to travel in April already, because now she would certainly have no means of transport4. Our dear Max is not doing well health-wise and financially in Shanghai and the poor man feels tired of life. As often as I can, I send him; “can” is an exaggeration, as at the present the dear Miron earns very little, but I scrimp and save, for my feeling is that no sacrifice is too big to help my poor, unhappy brother. You know that I understood him least of all, but distance forges us Jellineks together more than ever. He writes me loving letters often and I to him. He still believes that Stella’s curse pursues him. She shouldn’t have done that; he would definitely have gone back to her, but her curse is still in his ears. It would be better for both of them if they would be together and it is such a crying shame that two wonderful human beings cannot understand one another. If he had confided in the dear parents, they would have convinced him not to do this (i.e., separate and go to Shanghai without his wife, Stella). Yesterday I was at WIZO,5 where Mrs. Kannler, (vice-president) Mrs. Tiefenbrunn’s sister is, and they told me that not long ago they sent many beautiful things to you in Palestine; maybe refer to them; one knows them very well. [written down the left side of this page]: Karl’s address: 580 W. 161 Street |
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Page 4. Dear Uncle Karl is well, thank God. he is a representative of a printing company and sells belts and buckles on the side, that are made by the wife of a doctor from Eger. Carla has a good position at a bank;6 only one thing aggrieves her, that the children have to be in a [children’s] home, but they are very well taken care of there and are supposed to be the most beautiful children in the home and are very popular. The little Bernhard should already weigh 18 pounds and have the double chin of his Mama.7 Next week I will send you a small package with dresses, shoes and whatever is too big for you, alter it to suit you. Well, I want to tell you about our little Trudi; you would be surprised to see what has become of her; firstly, she runs like a weasel, already speaks fluent English and German and has become in spirit and body a healthy child, knock on wood. However she was lying in the hospital for 6 months in a plaster cast, as the x-ray showed that she had dislocated both hips again. Can you imagine how we suffered with that. I kept it a secret from our loved ones because I didn’t want them to get upset. While our poor bunny rabbit was in the hospital, I took a position as cook and came home only in the evenings to sleep; I was very troubled, but we were able to save something at the time since Miron also earned. Now I can’t earn anything unfortunately, because the big apartment, the household and the child take up a lot of my time and I really have little time for my private correspondence. Trudi goes from 10 o’clock until [written down the left side of this page]: Uncle Max’s Adr.: Max J. 147 Route de SayZoong Shanghai |
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Page 5. 3 o’clock in the afternoon to a private kindergarten, where one loves her and she loves it, but if she is home, she takes up all my time. She is a bit spoiled and although my hand is often very quick-witted8, in spite of everything she adores me and if I cry or am sad, she kisses me until I say now [it] is better. She prays every morning and evening for her dear grandparents, especially [for]Aunt Gisa she always yells loudly; it seems she feels how much the good aunt loves her; if only my dear sister could live to enjoy it, but she prays for all aunts, uncles and [female and male] cousins. Hopefully, we pray to God, that all will end well. What is little Paul doing?9 What a shame that you did not marry him. He is so decent and we would be at ease. Dr. Schubert died in London as the result of an operation and she does handwork (needlework?) for people; that is life. Next time more news, unfortunately lots of work is waiting for me and the rascal10 will appear soon. My dear husband has been employed for one year already by one of the first photographers, but unfortunately, only in the mornings; in the afternoon, he does retouching and nebbish, looks out for (after) other photographers; unfortunately we have too little money and no equipment to become self-employed. But we would be satisfied with everything, but the worry about our loved ones and the uncertain future prevents us from being happy. Sydney is such a fabulous, lovely town; the lovely sea and the most beautiful and best fruit and vegetables that there are. I herewith hope that my letter reaches you in peace, I kiss you fervently, your faithful Aunt Anna. Now you can write to me more often because you now have a little bit [of information]. [written by Miron immediately after the end of Anna’s letter on page 5.]: I have enjoyed your lines very much. We must be more courageous now than ever and with God’s help be prepared for all of the bad, sorrowful things looming ahead. Kisses Miron [written down the left side of this page]: Many heartfelt greetings for dear Stella; I will write her an extra card and she should also write me soon. Don’t give any of the money or things to anyone, because it was hard for me to send everything. |
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Translated by Anne Fox; edited by Ursula Eckelman of Sütterlinstube, Hamburg, Germany
Footnotes
1. Anna used Truderl as a diminutive, affectionate form of her daughter's name, Trudi; similar to her use of Giserl for Gisela in the second sentence after this one.
2. Anna is referring to Jews in then- British Mandate Palestine.
3. Gisela Jellinek Schlesinger, Anna’s older sister and the eldest of the six children of Siegmund and Berta S. Jellinek. See Gisela’s Bio. and Bios, of each member of this family in the Brief Biographies section.
4. See Siegfried Jellinek's Brief Bio. to read more about Siegtfried’s deportation in October 1939, as part of the ‘Nisko Plan’ and how neither Siegfried nor his wife, Martha managed to get to America, and were later murdered in the Shoah. Their son, Erich didn’t get to America either, but survived imprisonment in Auschwitz.
5. WIZO – see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_International_Zionist_Organization
6. The bank was the Modern Industrial Bank (later Bank of North America) that Carla’s uncle, Rubin Eckstein co-founded. Rubin was the person who sent the US -required affidavit for Carla, Karl and ~1 1/2 yeat old Michaela. For an unknown reason, Rubin defied the expectation that he would also employ Karl at the bank and as an officer.
7. Reference to Bernhard’s Mama’s double chin is a snide comment by Anna, consistent with the generally, not-high level of respect for Kreindel/Carla, the ‘Galizianer’ by several members of the Jellinek family.
8. Here Anna used the German word “schlagfertig” in a sarcastic way and meant that often her hand slips in the sense of being ready to hit Trudi.
9. kl or lb ? -> little or dear?
10. nickname for her husband, Miron.
