Appendix 1: Letter from Else Auerbach

Hilversum, 7 December 1941

My dear Frau Marie,

When a letter arrived a few days ago and I recognized you from the handwriting I was delighted. Then, when I had read it, I was surprised about a good deal, happy about other things and deeply shaken by some of the news. The content of your letter is a mirror of these times. The loneliness, the separation from your children, the disappointment in people and all the dreadful things we have to live through have made you decide to marry again. I understand your decision entirely and wish, from the bottom of my heart, that all the hopes you pin on this may be fulfilled. I had no opportunity to meet your future husband but often heard his name mentioned in your house. Even if we only write to each other occasionally we both know that we are bound by a real feeling of friendship and for the sake of that friendship I beg you to tell me more about what has moved you so deeply. What do your mother and Irene say about it? Do they understand how you feel?

The news about Else R. shook me deeply. One of the many who cannot cope with the times. One needs to have great strength, resistance and the will to live to be able to bear all the hardship. I liked her very much. How does her poor husband cope with his lot? Where is F. and where is Hans? And now poor Frau Altscherl. Another one to be pitied. God grant that the war will soon end and she can go back home. I presume her husband is with her. We are also very worried about my husband’s family (two brothers with their wives) and about my sister with her sick husband and two children of nineteen and twenty. The intention was for my sister to leave today. So you can imagine what sort of a mood we are in. One would so like to help and one is so powerless.

We too have lived through a lot. My eldest brother died almost a year ago in Gurs1 in the south of France where he had to live in a dreadful camp. But we only heard much later about his death. The poor man went through a lot. We so wanted to help him but couldn’t. Even writing from here was not possible. Post sent to him was returned with the inscription ‘Postal Service Suspended’. Parcels came back to me half a year later. It is horrific that one cannot help one’s nearest in their greatest need.

Then our nephew, the only son of my husband’s elder brother, who because of particular problems was unable to accompany his parents to the USA straightaway, met a terrible fate. He died on 18 September, just after his 22nd birthday. Until shortly before his death (about three months ago) he had lived in Amsterdam where he was waiting for his exit permit. Despite all our efforts we couldn’t help him. Can you understand our grief?²

We have lived through terrible things and as long as the war continues we will not be free of dreadful worries.

What you tell me about Edith and her husband makes us happy. Less so what you say about Grete. I would much rather that she had formed a new relationship with another man because, after all, she went through so much with Otto.

Do the sisters live in the same town? Do they ever go near [my daughter] Hannah? Do tell me. Then I will send you H.’s address. Heaven grant that H. stays as happy as she is at present. She sees her husband every weekend and will have work so long as the war lasts. She is apparently very good at it. After the war I hope she will be a good support for her husband. He is an architect by profession and there will be all sorts of jobs to do then. Hannah is at least 5 cm. taller than me. She is 1.82 tall and Lernhard 1.76. The latter took his abitur with particularly good marks in history. Who would ever have thought that possible? On top of that he then spent ten months overseas and is now back at his old school. He will stay there until Christmas and then take a job. Yes, my dear, who would have thought that we, who love them very much, would have to live for years without our children. I often have such a terrible longing for them, but we must be glad to know that they are doing well.

My youngest brother and my mother have been living in Texas, (USA) since ’27. Fortunately they are doing well. My brother has work and earns enough for them to live comfortably. There is nothing special to tell you, thank goodness, about my husband and myself. We have only one wish, to be able to carry on with our quiet retiring life until the end of the war. The area where we live is lovely – woods, fields, meadows, moorland. We have also got to know a few very nice people particularly and the local inhabitants are very kind and we treasure them.

Please write to me soon. I would very much like to know how long this letter took. Once again, all the best and warmest greetings to all your dear ones and our mutual friends.

Your Else

P.S. Greetings from my husband for all of you. Please reply soon!

1Gurs was an internment and refugee camp in south-western France which became a concentration camp for non-French Jews, as well as political opponents of the Vichy government.

²Willy Lazar Auerbach, born 30 August 1919 in Elbing, Germany (now Poland) and living in 1941 in Amsterdam, died in Mauthausen Concentration Camp on 18 September 1941. In 1941 several hundred Dutch Jews were sent to Mauthausen in retaliation for acts of resistance in the Netherlands.