May 27, 1940

Author(s) / Origin of Letter
Recipient(s) / Relationship to Author(s) / Destination of Letter
Summary

Gisella Nadja Jellinek
[Rishon Le Zion, British Mandate Palestine]

The statement by the eminent historian, Saul Friedländer, cited at the end of this website’s Introduction, about Jewish victims of Nazis policies not knowing or being able to know the horrific future that lay ahead for them, is tragically evident in Gisela’s letter. Most poignant and revelatory of her lack of realization of the urgency to escape anywhere out of Nazi control are her statements that she and Poldi have received affidavits from her brother, Karl Jellinek for the USA, but they are “not travelling yet;” and in any case, she “is not so fond of America.” Gisela provides details, about herself and other family members still in Vienna, as well as information about family and friends who have escaped to Brno, Czechoslovakia, Sydney, Australia, Shanghai, China, New York City and London. A few examples relate to: Martha H. Jellinek’s problems obtaining affidavits, visas and money for ship tickets; the lack of sufficient heating during the severe winter that she and her husband Poldi, and her parents, Siegmund and Berta, had to endure; and her brother Hugo’s great satisfaction with his recent marriage.

 
 

(View German Transcription)

Vienna, May 27, 1940

My dearest Mrs. Marianne, beloved Giselchild!!!

Today I finally received a sign of life from you in the form of a card from dear Marianne1, in which she gives me a very brief report, which nevertheless made me very happy because I understood from it that, thank God, you are doing well and are healthy. By the time you receive this letter, it will be fully two years that you are away from us and the time has flown by. Dear Papa has been in Brünn just as long, and I can only tell you that he, touch wood, has become very happy through his marriage with the brave, noble and high-minded woman. In every letter and card, he stresses how immensely satisfied he is in his marriage, and that is saying a lot for Hugo, as he demands a great deal from a woman in every way. -She is as dear grandma used to say ”at the stove and on the horse,” which means that she is not only a superb hostess and housewife, but also a lady of society, and a competent business woman. On Mother’s Day, the third Sunday in May, that took place here on the 19th, she sent Mama a Mother’s Day package with good things, so I was very happy that I had fewer worries about Mama, whom I have to nourish well. Both grandparents have, touch wood, a good appetite and keep well. This winter they were both very sick with quite severe flu, but the good God restored them to us. We had a very harsh winter here this year and yet we had to save a lot on heating and only heated the dear grandparents’ bedroom. The cold did not affect uncle Poldi and me; as you know, dear uncle Poldi2 is inured to cold, and I became the same, due to him. In the meantime, May arrived, but unfortunately, it rained a lot here and grandma only took one walk. We bought an armchair for her and so she can sit down whenever she is tired. Almost every evening I visit the Hahns on the fourth floor and they also have less news from their son now. They used to have a letter nearly every week and I always burned with envy. I read most of the letters and he is already employed at a hospital. Can’t you ever see him? If you can, tell him that his parents are well and would be happy to be reunited with him and Erna. Uncle Poldi and I have received an affidavit from uncle Karl [Jellinek], but I’m not travelling yet and the same will be shared.3 Best of all, I would just like to come to you and I am not so fond of America. I believe that the pace there is too fast for my age.

Page 2.

Uncle Poldi was only registered on October 11, 1938 and will not have his [physical] examination until September [1940]. Before he leaves, many months will pass, thank God; you can imagine how difficult the parting from [y]our good uncle is for me. I will get an affidavit together with the parents and in the meantime, much water will flow in the Danube. - - - Aunt Martha and Erich4 have already completed everything, the examination, Visas, etc. except for the ship tickets, which the person from America who gave the affidavit, telegraphed them about, [writing] that he can’t raise the money for two tickets. Now they have to wait until the local [Jewish] community organization can give them the tickets and that can take until August. Yesterday a very charming letter arrived from Aunt Anny5 and Uncle Max [Jellinek] in which she also wrote that you can count on greater support from her. Uncle Karl wrote that he sent each of you and his brother -in-law, Max, a large package of clothes and I beg you to write to me right away if you received it. Uncle Karl is thank God, already doing very well and Karla’s sister, Aunt Klara, with her husband and child are [staying] with them since April 2nd. I thank you for your good wishes for April 2nd, but that is not my wedding anniversary, but my birthday, and I always celebrate my anniversary on January 30th, as I was married on January 30th 1922. - to good things and to luck. -

Grandma is sitting with me right now and sends you warm greetings. You should write soon, but only personal and family matters. Didn’t you receive the letter that I wrote regarding Uncle Ludwig Schlesinger and his wife and daughter?6 I also gave Uncle Ludwig your address; hopefully he contacted you. Liesl has a position in a kindergarten and I would be very happy if you could be in closer contact with her. Mr. Beer and Mr. Munk, who are from where I used to live, are also there and also the student Pulgram, who is studying there.- How are you?

Papa was, poor thing, already very excited because he had no news of you for such a long time and I sent him the card immediately. A lady from the house was recently there [in Brno] and she told me that Papa is a wonderful, stylish and very elegant man and at the same time, so clever and capable. So you can be reassured and have peace of mind. Your two sisters are golden girls. Bertha is highly fashionable; Father calls her ironically “Lipstick Queen,” but she [Bertha] is right; if she wants to go to Uncle Karl, one must worry about one’s looks.- She is extremely elegant, writes Putzi [familial nickname of Hugo’s youngest daughter, Anna], who is much more modest and Papa is much more satisfied with her. But I always calm Papa when he complains about Bertha and tell him that she is a very

Page 3.

beautiful and stylish girl, 18 years old, and that it is really not a crime if one likes to take care of oneself. I am certain that she knows how to behave, as I always write her hidden, lovely motherly-letters and she also writes to me as if to her own mother. I know that she is a good-hearted child and I often send her concealed money so that she can pay her eternal little debts. Papa is not to know this, by God, but she toils enough and earns very little. Just now, she had an elegant suit made for herself that she can’t possibly afford from her own earnings. I also send something to Putzi from time to time. She is, however, more thrifty and helps Bertuschka out. Uncle Karl will send an invitation to Bertha very soon and there she will fit in beautifully and will surely make her fortune.7 What is happening with your little heart throbs? What do you hear from Pauli? Did he ever give you the beautiful camel hair blanket that I gave him for you? I finished the black turtleneck sweater that you wanted long ago, but don’t know how to get it to you. Perhaps Aunt Martha will take it with her and then Uncle Karl can send it to you.8 I will work something out. For six weeks now, four times a week from 4 - 7 in the afternoons, I am taking an art knitting course, and you know how interested I am in that. I already have 30 new patterns and want to qualify in this speciality, so that I can eventually earn a living by it. I already wrote you that Dr. Schubert died out there at Gerty’s;9 the poor woman has to support herself with knitting, but unfortunately, she is very clumsy and one doesn’t keep her and nothing will help her, as one can’t keep her on the job as she is not at all capable.

I correspond with Mrs. Tiefenbrunn and she promised me to write to you. Nobody knows where Hansi and Gretel are at this time. Hansi knows that his poor Papa died; Gretel doesn’t know yet. Mrs. Kamsler is with Aunt Anny [in Sydney, Australia] and has a large hat shop. Her husband is always ill and she is the head of the “WIZO”10 A very capable woman. Mrs. Tiefenbrunn will also go there with the children and Anny is looking forward to that. Uncle Max has also promised to write to you. Has he done so already? He is very unhappy lately; the climate there does not suit him. He has already received the affidavit from Uncle Karl and hopes to be there in the fall; there are still enough obstacles [or “difficulties”] to overcome.11 How is Aunt Stella?12 I found out from Mrs. Marianne’s sister, who does all the work for me13 that she [Stella] is quite good at invisible mending and manicures,

Page 4.

and that she also taught Mimi, this woman’s daughter, invisible mending since they shared the entire long journey. Only this woman Mimi, is young and married young and was able to bear everything much more easily than your Aunt Stella, who has always been very nervous. Have you been able to meet her often? She will surely travel to see Uncle Bela; that is where uncle Karl is. He is a very well-known professor; the inventor of serum for diptheria, Dr. Bela Schick.14 I don’t know why Aunt Stella did not register herself [for emigration to the US] right away; she could have been there already. Erna [probably a friend] has been there for a long time already, but she did not act nicely to the parents and didn’t come to us anymore, where she always enjoyed so much friendliness. I thank dear Aunt Marianne a thousand times for her kindness and may the loving God reward her through her children.15 Mrs. Stepler also sent me a picture postcard after her arrival there, but unfortunately, did not give me Hella’s address16. Perhaps Mrs. Marianne can give me the address at the next opportunity, as I am very worried about Dr. Stepler, as he did not leave here in very good condition. I believe that Richard will leave soon too, but there were some difficulties with the house. Rosy invited me to come by some time; Aloisgasse 1, and I’ll do that soon.

Now, very heartfelt greetings to Marianne and her husband and dear children, and again many thanks, that was a wonderful idea and I was about to ask for the same thing today.

To you, dear child, a thousand hot kisses in

true love,17 your aunt-mama Gisa.

From the [your] dear grandparents and Uncle Poldi, many kisses,



[From Siegmund Jellinek:]

Beloved Nadja !

In enforced shortness and in consideration of the limited space, I confine myself to send you heartfelt greetings and kisses and hug you with the hope that we will see each other once again.



[From Berta Schafer Jellinek:]

My beloved Gisella! Because we have so rarely received letters from you, your letter made me very happy; we were very worried when no news came from you for such a long time. Therefore write to us soon. Your grandma Berta, who loves you.

(View German Transcription)


 

Translated by Anne Fox; edited by P. Jellinek

Siegmund and Berta S. Jellinek’s messages translated by Brigitte Balkow of Sütterlinstube, Hamburg, Germany;

Footnotes

1. Marianne Robiček, was a long-time friend of Gisela J. S. Bcause Marianne lived in Yugoslavia at the time, she could act as the necessary conduit for Gisela’s letters to Gisella Nadja, until Yugoslavia was occupied by the Nazis in May 1941.
Gisela J. S. sent her letters to Marianne, and Marianne sent them on to Gisella Nadja — and vice-versa.

2. Poldi is the nickname of Leopold Schlesinger, Gisela’s husband.

3. It is not clear whether Gisela means that she will be telling her brother Karl that she doesn’t want to travel yet, or whether she means that Poldi shares her wish to delay travel out of Vienna. What does seem painfully apparent from Gisela’s expressed desire to delay her travel and to be selective about where she would prefer to go, is that Gisela still seems not to realize the urgency and necessity of escaping anywhere out of Nazi control.

4. Gisela writes all of the relationship titles from Gisella Nadja’s point of view. Martha H. Jellinek was married to Siegfried Jellinek; Erich was their son. [See Family Tree]

5. Anny Jellinek Nadel, who, together with her husband, Miron Nadel, was starting to do well financially, with their photo studio business, that they reestablished in Sydney, Australia. “Uncle Max” = Max Jellinek and “Uncle Karl” = Karl Jellinek.

6. Gisela has been using the relationship to Gisella Nadja of the person that she refers to, so “Uncle Ludwig Schlesinger” was most probably the brother of Gisela’s husband, Leopold (Poldi) Schlesinger. Gisela intimates that Ludwig and his family managed to escape to Mandate Palestine. “Liesl,” mentioned two sentences later, was most probably Ludwig’s wife. Gisella Nadja never mentioned anything to me, P. Jellinek, about this family, so sadly, this family connection seems not to have survived the uprooting and displacement from Europe to Mandate Palestine & later Israel.

7. We do not know whether Karl Jellinek was able to arrange the “invitation” (with required affidavit & Visa) to Bertha to come to the US, but we know that Bertha never escaped Europe and was deported from Brno and murdered just two years later. Here is another instance of the many optimistic, naive predictions in this letter, of Gisela, as well as Hugo, Bertha and Anna not being able to know how urgent their escape was. It seems to us, in privileged hindsight now, that they should have concentrated all of their efforts and energy on escape. Their usual perspectives and attitudes toward day-to-day life seem now to us, and tragically, turned out to be, delusional. But in this unknowable and unprecedented reality, their struggle to continue with normal concerns also helped them persevere.

8. Gisela still expected that her sister-in-law, Martha H. Jellinek, Siegfried Jellinek’s wife, would manage to escape to the US, but neither Martha nor Gisela escaped and were deported from Vienna and murdered by the Nazis in 1942.

9. Dr. Ernst Schubert, had a Doctorate of Law and had practiced law in Vienna and Stockerau until his disbarment by the Nazi Regime’s Reich Citizenship Laws. He managed to escape to London in late August 1939. In writing “. . . out there at Gerty’s, . . . ” Gisela cryptically refers to the Schuberts’ daughter Gertrude (nicknamed Gerty) who had arrived in England a few months earlier. It is possible that Ernst Schubert’s death so soon after he arrived in England was related to the experience of being a “Second World War Internee” at the Isle of Man. He had been a colleague of Dr. Karl Jellinek’s and friend of the family. He was born in Vienna in 1882.

10. WIZO is the Women’s International Zionist Organization and still functions as a social welfare organization in Israel and in the US. Their Mission statement: “WIZO USA is dedicated to the advancement of the status of women, the education and welfare of children, the care of the elderly, and the protection of the most vulnerable members of Israeli society.”

11. We do not know why Max was not able to realize his hope to get to the US., but it probably was because he could not secure a US Visa. He survived the war in Shanghai and couldn’t even get out of there and emigrate to Australia until after July 1946.

12. Stella Pollak Jellinek, Max Jelinek’s then-estranged wife, endured a long journey to Mandate Palestine and lived there for an unknown amount of time before she left for Sydney, Australia where her sister and brother-in-law, Anna Jellinek Nadel and Miron Nadel were living. Stella’s death in Sydney, Austrralia in the 1980s was the last of any of the Jellinek siblings or their spouses.

13. It is puzzling and not known to which ‘work’ Gisela is referring. Gisela does not mention having help with any of her difficult household chores in any extant letter. It is possible that Gisela is cryptically referring to the ‘work’ of sending her letters (including this one) via Marianne Robíček in Yugoslavia, to Gisella Nadja in Mandate Palestine.

14. Gisela writes cryptically and somewhat mistakenly here: I do not know anything about Dr. Bela Schick being Gisella Nadja’s uncle and therefore, also my uncle. But rather, Gisela posssiby writes “Uncle Bela” thinking that that sounds more personal and unthreatening to the Nazi regime censors, just as she refers to Mrs. Marianne as Aunt Marianne three sentences later. I believe Dr. Schick was an acquaintance or friend of Karl Jellinek and/or Hugo Jellinek, who may even have been his student at the Medical School of the University of Vienna. I, P. Jellinek, once saw a booklet about Dr. Schick’s scientific work among my father, Karl’s papers.
Stella never got to New York City, (or the US at all), the city to which Bela Schick had emigrated from Vienna in 1923. Dr. Schick invented a test for diptheria (not a serum as Gisela wrote) which helped wipe out this disease in children. See https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/medicine/medicine-biographies/bela-schick for more information on Dr. Schick’s “contributions to knowledge about scarlet fever, tuberculosis, infant nutrition “ and the “allergic reaction.”

15. Again, Gisela ‘confers’ a close relative status to Marianne, probably believing it to be safer given the anticipated censor’s reading. Marianne was in reality, a former schoolmate and friend of Gisela’s, but not Gisella Nadja’s aunt.

16. Both Mrs. and Mr. Stepler and Hella, as well as “Richard” and “Rosy” mentioned in the following sentences, were probably acquaintances or friends of Gisela. Allusions to “arrivals” and “leaving” are to the US. Unfortunately, it is unknown to what Gisela was cryptically referring by “difficulties with the house” or “a wonderful idea.”

17. Gisela’s use of the adjective “hot” to describe her kisses was likely in common informal, familial usage at the time to express “intensity of feeling and emotional connection”, of a non-sexual nature, as well as of a sexual, romantic nature. The contemporary website Gutefrage.net adds “passion and a high level of intimacy” to its definition of “hot kisses,” which suggests eroticism (as its American English usage does) but it is clear that Gisela’s use fits the “intense, passionate and emotionally connected” part of the definition, and does not include any sexual innuendoes.