Appendix 3: Post-war letters from Salvator and Hella Cougno (Kounio) written in English to Grete Reichl

1	Thessaloniki, 20/11/1945

Dear Gretl

Your letter addressed to my father-in-law Ernst Löwy reached me a few days ago and, as he died, I am replying to your letter. I was very pleased to hear that you are safe.

Unfortunately all the Jews of Salonika have been deported to concentration camps in Germany. All the members of our family have been taken with the first transport and my father-in-law has been taken after a while. If he had the patience to be hidden a little more I think he could still remain here. We have been deported in Auschwitz where it was terrible. We have suffered so much that still today I cannot believe how I escaped death. My father-in-law was burnt (gassed) immediately at his arrival in Auschwitz. My wife Hella, my daughter Erika and my son Henry and I, we were lucky that we have received a better work so that we could resist the first months.

The last six months of the concentration camps, since December 1944, was terrible. I was always together with my son, and Hella and Erika separately in another camp. We have been liberated in Mauthausen with my son together which is now 18 years old, and Hella and Erika together in Belsen Malhow.¹⁰ I returned here in August and only three weeks ago Erika came back alone. Hella has taken other dispositions because she thought we were all dead and now she is not willing any more to come here. You see how bitter it is now for all of us. In order to have an idea you must think that from 52,000 Jews who have been deported only 1,000 came back. All the 51,000 died there. I found all my business and home destroyed but I started again and I am very confident that shortly I shall have a good position in my business.

Please write me a few words giving me news of your family. What news about your mother and sister? Have you heard anything from Ilse Spitz? If you have her address, please write it me. I think you will remember when I was in Karlsbad 20 years ago. It was a very happy time. After the hell of these last years, it seems to me like a dream.

I will be very pleased to receive any news from you and if you think I can do something for you, I shall do it with great pleasure.

Yours heartfully, Cougno S.

2	Thessaloniki, 18/2/1946

My dear Gretl

At last I came home and I found a charming letter from you. You cannot imagine how I am happy to hear news from you. We are only so few ones from our family. It is alike a wonder that we are all four still alive and only my dear father payed it very hard. He never believed, when we heard by the radio about it and he told that it is only propaganda. He payed it with his life. I know the loss of my father is a big loss for you too, but you see we became all fatalist and we say that is chance, or, as the Turkish say, ‘kismet’.

I returned now about 10 days home and I wanted to write to you earlier, but you do understand quite well when I came home I found a lot of things to do and now I am very nervous and restless and I want to work. I do not like to sit and to think. I understand you quite well, that you are thinking always about your dear mother and your family, but you see we have seen so much misery that we are now so happy that we are still alive. You do know quite well the French proverb ‘Laissez les morts aux morts’. You see, our best comrade during 3 years has been death. Often we said it would be better to die than to see all this. Tell me, please, who is still alive from our family and send me, please, the addresses. Yes, you are right, we must go on. We must fight and we shall do it. We went to a hard school but we did learn a lot. But we must begin everything from the beginning and sometimes we are very tired. Our children are grown up now and the hard school of Auschwitz taught them a lot. You can be sure that everybody who came out of Auschwitz did learn how to fight in life. Please send me the address of Fritz Ullmann in Palestine. He wrote to me that he would go to Palestine and I would write to him that I returned home.

I am happy to hear that Edith got married. Please send us a photo of her little daughter. I want awfully to see the pride of your family. You are living near her home and I believe that you are often together with her. Tell Edith to write to me. Perhaps she has more time than you. Please do not be late to answer me and I would be very glad to read Edith too.

With much love to you all. Your Hella

3	Thessaloniki, 8 May 1946

My dear Gretl

Thank you for your dear letter of 1st May. It is just some days I got your writing but I did not feel so well and tonight I will answer all your questions. You cannot imagine how I have been touched by the photo of your dear mother. So many souvenirs are awakened. I believe you understand me very well. I believe we are living in a dream and happily we are not quite awake. It is better to dream and not to be in the present. There are too many people who you miss and you will not believe that everybody you once loved is not any more beside you, but it is better not to remember this time. We must look forwards, not behind. I am very glad that you got the parcel with the dried fruits and I hope I shall send you in near time another parcel, but I will send you only nuts and almonds. Send me the address of Edith so I can send [some to] her too.

I did not get a reply from Hans Bartl and will try to write to him again. He helped me very much during the German occupation and I would like to help him as much as I can now. If you write to him, please tell him to write to me and I will try again but the post with Austria is not in good order. Your dear mother did not know him but my father begged him to meet your mother but he could not manage to go to Prague because he has been a communist and the German Wehrmacht did not trust him and did not send him to Vienna but they sent him to the front. But you see you will not lose nothing to write to him and ask him everything he knows about your dear mother and about my father and tell him to write to me too. Unhappily I did not see your mother because she came before me to Auschwitz. If I had seen her I would have tried to help her, but when I came I found only her name on the list of SB, that meant gassed. SB is Sonderbehandlung, the special treatment for the Jews.11 That is all that I know about Tante Marie. Only about one thing you must thank God: she has not been suffering. It was better to be gassed the very moment you came into the camp and not many days afterwards. And so to know where they were going. We fight day and night against death. So I am very sorry I cannot write news of your dear mother to you.

I believe you will soon have the occasion to meet Salvator and he will tell you everything that happened and then you can imagine the truth. We cannot write it. It is too dreadful and nobody will believe us.

We have again the house at the sea. The children are all right and we too. I do not feel so well. The camp – you must pay for everything in life. Salvator happily feels well. Please, dear Gretl, write me quick. I am always longing for news from you and give greetings to Edith and kisses for you and little Ann.

Yours, Hella.

¹⁰Malhow (Malchow) was in fact a sub-camp of Ravensbrück, not Belsen. It was a camp for women.

¹¹This comment is unclear. It is highly unlikely that Marie, deported to Izbica from where the prisoners were sent to Sobibór or Bełżec, would eventually be transferred to Auschwitz.