Saturday, 24.12. 38
My dear Gretel, despite best intentions to write to you
yesterday so that you’d have a letter from me tomorrow at any rate, it didn’t
work out, and today likewise: It is already after 12 o’clock now that I finally
get around to sitting down in peace and writing – for how long, is
questionable. Then there is the cold, the coming holidays, and the water shut-down
over the holidays (the toilets are, by the way, completely frozen). The cold is
too awful – I had endless telephone conversations with three companies – Roller,
Liebenot, and Sichel. At first I could reach only Roller, then Andreas, and so
forth – I spent almost the whole morning on this matter, and what’s worse,
Adelheid [the maid] wasted the whole morning running around because of a
packet for Hannah [Gretel’s youngest daughter], the only packet I put
together. Yesterday evening she came back with it and brought along a huge
number of forms to fill out. And although Mimi [Wilhelmine Bing, Emma’s
sister] happened to be here, who has filled out the same forms x-times for
Leo and filled them out for me in the same way, everything was still wrong, and
Adelheid had to go to the post office three times, because there was always
something else that didn’t work out despite help from a gentlemen at the office
who supposedly always handled those things. And in addition to this, the
frightful cold, the snow which doesn’t stop, it is really awful. I didn’t make
any progress yesterday, it was a terrible day for me, nothing but business, in
between visitors, a lot of paperwork, presents for Adelheid – in the end I was
so tired that after the evening meal I had to rest on the chaise longue until
it was time to go to bed, even though I would have liked to go on writing to
you. And then I had some joy, although it also brought me worries: a call from
Hedda J. who always thinks so lovingly of me. But my worry is about you, my
dear child, for I heard that on the day before yesterday in the evening you had
quite a head cold, and that you are also suffering cruelly cold weather (but I
knew that already), so that even your bathroom was frozen. And I am sorry that
you are so alone and therefore have a lot of work and bother. And then there is
the insufficiency of your heating, that is, no heating. In that respect I am a
little better off with our stoves, which use up a lot of coals (which were hard
to get this week because the ships on the Rhine are iced in), but I keep at it
all day long, so that it’s moderately warm. Adelheid sleeps in your room now
because hers can’t be heated, and in this manner we also heat the back corridor
a little bit, although it’s barely noticeable. They ruined the stove in the
front corridor on 10. 11. [during Kristallnacht, the Nazi rampage],
after it had just been repaired a week earlier. Please write immediately how
you are and, if you have a cold, stay in bed and look after your health.
Someone else must look after your office, or people will have to wait until you
are well again. Yesterday morning a wonderful present arrived: a beautiful
white bed jacket, sent by Wolfgang [Gretel’s oldest son, born 1909] (today
I received his kind letter), and I “inaugurated” it immediately last night.
Give him my heartiest thanks for the time being, I will write to him myself
later this week. I hope you were able to be with him and your loved ones during
these days. I would be very sorry to think that you are all by yourself. I had
chicken yesterday (only because of Adelheid) and today we’ll have a rabbit
roast. I invited Jenny [Janny Saarbach, Emma’s sister] to share it,
because I want her to have something nice as well. There is a great shortage of
things where she is. You can’t get meat at all or hardly ever. That’s why I
invite her to a dinner of roast meat most of the time, for which she is very grateful.
Imagine I can’t find your last letter, although I looked and looked for it. It
got lost under the immense number of papers and letters with which I must deal.
I only remember that you wrote about the penalty, that you notified them of
your cashed-out pension, but that was not the right thing to do – I know that
from Mimi, who also did so at first, but it was not necessary. You never told
me what happened to your pension – did they accept your request? You know how
much I am interested in that matter – only on your behalf. Yesterday morning I
received a letter from Dr. Kraus [Emil Kraus, former mayor of Mainz, now
Emma’s legal advisor]. I will copy the contents out for you. You can
imagine that his letters made me even more depressed. Soon I won’t know what to
do anymore and how I can fulfil all my obligations. You know that I have larger
expenses than usual on January 1st, and this time I have to cash in
the last money I still have in the bank to be able to pay for everything –
well, things will go on somehow. Last week I had numerous meetings with the
administrator [Dietz?] of the house, and it is good that I engaged this man,
who is very nice and effective. Paul S. also uses him for his house. According
to the letter, I was supposed to have a man assigned by the party, and I am
sure this is the better option. D[ietz?] keeps primarily an eye on my interests
(but he gets 360 Marks annually). He already had to put in a lot of effort. He
wrote letters to all the tenants, which they must sign, and he gave it to each party
in person to establish a relationship with them. He also manages the sale of
the house, which seems to be more iffy than before (check what Dr. Kr[aus] writes
about it). It looks like a mortgage needs to be taken out as security, but it
would be painful for me, and I hardly think I have enough left after paying
these so-called small sums in cash once again. Do you have any suggestion for
that? After all, I repeatedly sent money to you over there. Could you by any
chance send me some of it? If not, please give me advice on what to do. I would
gladly sell a lot of things, but it can hardly be done, and over the last two
months everything has lost value. Tomorrow I will write to Dr. K[raus] and
inform him that I would like to make inquiries with B. and R. concerning the
200 Marks. I can’t understand why the furniture is so expensive. I did after
all send 150 or 180 Marks to B. because you thought you could get the furniture
for that sum, and then I sent a smaller amount in November to Berlin for the
same purpose, and now these people demand another 200 Marks. Can that be right?
In any case let’s not lose sleep over that and let’s see how everything turns
out. I hope my letter finds you in good health, my dear, and that you will
write to me soon. I don’t think it’s right for you to send me something, and I
hope you haven’t done it yet. I could not send you…anything at all, as I never
leave the house now. 1000 greetings, also for Hans and Elsbeth [Gretel’s
daughter married to Hans Juda, publishers of the British export magazine “The
Ambassador”].
Your devoted Mother
FOR MORE LETTERS SEE MY NEXT BLOGPOST. For the originals
see LBI Archives AR 7167/MF 720.The translation is by Erika Rummel
and Susi Lessing.
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