Handwritten letter in German Kurrent script, written upside-down on page (rot...
[Archivvermerke oben links, Bleistift, nicht vom Schreiber:] II 1425 – 190 [Absenderzeile am oberen Blattrand, Tinte:] Frieda· Sara Allersheimer München 5 München, 27. Aug. 1941. Meine lb. Mina! Durch lb. Tante Frieda höre ich imme[r] wie es Dir geht u. freue mich wenn ich Gutes höre. Hoffent- lich gelingt es Dir bald Deine lb. Mutter bei Dir zu haben, ich wünsche es Dir von ganzem Herzen. Sei glücklich lb. Mina, daß Du bereits festen Fuß gefasst hast in einer neuen Heimat, so kannst Du doch wenigstens eine Stütze für Deine Lieben sein. Bei mir war es nun leider nicht mehr möglich, dank der Unverlässlichkeit von Heinz u. kann ich über dessen Gemeinheit mich niemals beruhigen. Über seinen Ver- lust allerdings bin ich längst getröstet, da ich eingesehen habe, daß jeder gute Gedanke u. jedes gute Gefühl an einen Unwürdigen gegeben wird. Liebe Mina, das Schicksal hat es glaube ich, doch noch ganz gut mit mir gemeint, ich habe im Kranken- haus einen Mann kennengelernt, der es verdient, daß man ihn lieb hat. Wir sind verlobt, wissen aller- dings noch nicht genau, wann wir heiraten, aber ich denke bald, wie ich glücklich bin, jemand gefunden zu haben, der zu mir passt, kannst Du Dir denken. Er ist Dipl. Ingenieur u. kann sehr viel, war schon in der ganzen Welt u. sieht gut aus. Ist natürl. älter wie Heinz u. passt dadurch viel besser zu mir. [Fortsetzung, quer am linken Blattrand um 90° gedreht, vier Zeilen:] Nachdem ich nun 1 Jahr als Krankenschwester gelernt habe, bin ich z. Z. wieder in meinem Beruf als Angestellte – Modistin. Liebe Mina, ich hoffe, daß wir uns doch einmal wieder- sehen, vielleicht gelingt es uns doch einmal nach U. S. A. zu kommen. Solltest Du einmal Lenchen Glassmann[?] treffen, sage bitte viele Grüße. Für Dich lb. Mina [Fortsetzung derselben Hand, kopfstehend über den Kopf des Blattes geschrieben:] Alles, alles Gute u. viele herzl. Grüße auch von Mutter u. Tante Deine Else. [zweite Hand, ebenfalls kopfstehend am Kopf des Blattes:] Meine liebe Mina nur für heute alles gute und herzliche Grüsse und Küsse fürdich sowie lb. Fritz von uns beiden Eure Tante Frieda [dritte, kleinere Hand, kopfstehend am Kopf des Blattes:] Für das kommende Jahr wünsche ich Dir alles, alles Gute von Herzen. Glück u. Segen.
[Archival pencil notes at top left, not by the writer:] II 1425 – 190 [Sender line along the top edge of the sheet, in ink:] Frieda· Sara Allersheimer Munich 5 Munich, 27 Aug. 1941. My dear Mina! Through dear Aunt Frieda I always hear how you are, and I am glad when I hear good news. Hopefully you will soon manage to have your dear mother with you; I wish it for you with all my heart. Be happy, dear Mina, that you have already found a firm footing in a new homeland — that way you can at least be a support for your loved ones. In my case it was unfortunately no longer possible, thanks to Heinz's unreliability, and I can never calm down about his meanness. About losing him, however, I have long since been consoled, since I have come to see that every good thought and every good feeling was given to someone unworthy. Dear Mina, fate has, I believe, after all still meant quite well by me: in the hospital I got to know a man who deserves to be loved. We are engaged, though we do not yet know exactly when we will marry, but I think soon; how happy I am to have found someone who suits me you can imagine. He is a graduate engineer and is very capable, has already been all over the world, and is good-looking. He is of course older than Heinz and therefore suits me much better. [Continuation, written sideways at 90° down the left margin, four lines:] Now that I have trained for a year as a nurse, I am at present back in my profession as an employee – milliner. Dear Mina, I hope that we shall see each other again some day; perhaps we too will manage to come to the U. S. A. some day. Should you ever meet Lenchen Glassmann[?], please give her many greetings. For you, dear Mina, [Continuation in the same hand, written upside down across the head of the sheet:] all, all the best and many warm greetings, also from Mother and Aunt. Your Else. [Second hand, likewise upside down at the head of the sheet:] My dear Mina, only for today, all the best and warm greetings and kisses to you as well as dear Fritz, from us both, your Aunt Frieda [Third, smaller hand, upside down at the head of the sheet:] For the coming year I wish you all, all the best from my heart. Happiness and blessing.
A private family letter written from Munich and carried on a single sheet whose top edge and left margin were used up by three further hands. The sender line at the head of the sheet gives the household as 'Frieda· Sara Allersheimer, München 5' — apparently Frieda Sara Allersheimer née Oppenheimer (b. 1883 Gemmingen), who added the 'Sara' forced on Jewish women by the 1938 name decree and who signs one of the cross-written notes as 'Tante Frieda'. The dateline reads 27 Aug. 1941, not the 1941-12-21 of the file metadata; that matters, because Frieda Allersheimer was deported from Munich in November 1941 and killed at Fort IX, Kaunas on 25 November 1941, so this sheet appears to have been written about three months before her deportation and her note here is among the last traces of her. The letter contains no deportation or death news: it is a young woman's news to an emigrated relative in America — a broken engagement to a man named Heinz, a year of nurse's training, a new fiancé met in hospital — with the emigration theme surfacing only obliquely in 'in my case it was unfortunately no longer possible' and in the hope that 'perhaps we too will manage to come to the U. S. A. some day', written two months before the Reich closed Jewish emigration altogether on 23 October 1941.