When the Nazis came to the door in Wolfenbattel, Germany on March 8, 1943, they came with a warning: You have one hour to pack your things and leave your home.
In that hour, a mother crafted a letter to her son-in-law Hans, who had already left Germany for San Francisco. She knew that “whether you ever get this letter is a question. I try to write you anyway.”
In the letter, she wondered about her son Max, who she knew was in Terezin but hadn’t heard from in a year. She told Hans about the death of his father-in-law, the high cost of the funeral and how she was profoundly lonely without her mate. She signed the letter, “I have to say goodbye, hope and wish all luck is with you. Thanks very much for everything, whatever you did for us. Goodbye and God bless you.â€
But Hans didn’t receive the letter until two years after his mother-in-law wrote it, at which point she was already dead.
Why the long route? She had given the letter to a friend, who gave it to an American soldier, who translated it from German to English, who sent it to his wife in the United States, who was finally able to give it to its rightful owner, Hans.
The original letter is missing, but the English version is on display at the Holocaust Center of Northern California in San Francisco. The letter is one of many featured in the center’s latest exhibit, “Letters: 1938-1946,”which opens Nov. 5.
“It’s amazing how the events of history are expressed through personal letters,”said archivist Judy Janec.
Janec spent months looking through the center’s archives, carefully reading old letters and postcards, all written in beautifully scripted German and Yiddish. The exhibit features letters that tell six families’ stories.
For example, there are the letters of Paula Prager, who wrote to her daughter Hilda Prager Silberberg every week, 135 letters in all. The stack of correspondence is as thick as a prayer book.
Paula lived in Nuremberg, and Hilda left Germany to take a nanny job in San Francisco. Early letters were written in Yiddish. Later letters, when the Germans had started reading the Jews’ mail, were written in German (otherwise they would never be mailed).
Janec could tell that German officials had opened each letter before being sent, except one. It remains unopened in the glass case.
“I find them moving no matter how many times I read them,”Janec said.
About once a year, the Holocaust Center displays items from its collection. Last year it displayed pamphlets and newsletters from the Holocaust era.
Janec decided to feature letters this time around because she wanted to make history feel human and accessible. With help from her archival committee, she selected letters to be translated into English, choosing stories that would provide people with a personal connection to individual victims of the Holocaust.
“I don’t want these people to disappear,”she said.
“Letters: 1938-1946 opens Nov. 5 at the Holocaust Center of Northern California, 121 Steuart St., S.F. The center is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday. For more information, call (415) 777-9060.