Handwritten letter

Handwritten short letter/note

18.03.1942from München (Munich), Germanybetween Julius Oppenheimer, Elsa Oppenheimer, Josef Oppenheimer, Karl Maier

Original — Deutsch

Meine Lieben,                    den 18.3.1942
heute früh kam Euer schönes Paket u.
danken wir Euch herzlichst dafür. Es
kam alles sehr gut an u. schmeckt
vorzüglich u. hat uns, wie immer,
sehr gefreut. Du hast recht lb. Karl
[durchgestrichen: das[?]] Marmeladeglas könnte bei diesem
Betrieb zerbrechen. Hoffentlich seid
Ihr Alle gesund u. habt von
Karl gute Nachricht? Nun ist es
doch wärmer geworden. Habt
Ihr unsren Brief u. die leeren
Karten erhalten? Wir sind gottlob
gesund u. freuen uns schon auf
                    Besuch
Deinen lb. [Brief — durchgestrichen, darüber eingefügt: Besuch] lb. Karl.
Nun nochmals alles Gute u. herzlich[es?]
„Vergellts Gott" mit besten Grüßen
Euch Allen      Eure Euchliebenden
                    Julius u. Else.

Translation — English

My dear ones,                    the 18.3.1942
this morning your lovely parcel arrived and
we thank you most warmly for it. Everything
arrived in very good condition and tastes
excellent, and it delighted us, as always,
very much. You are right, dear Karl,
[struck out: the[?]] jam jar could break with this
handling. I hope you are all
well, and have good
news from Karl? It has now
turned warmer after all. Have
you received our letter and the empty
cards? We are, thank God,
well, and are already looking forward to
                    visit
your dear [letter — struck out, with "visit" inserted above] dear Karl.
Now once more all the best and a heartfelt
"May God reward you", with best regards
to you all      Your loving
                    Julius and Else.

Historical context

A short, warm autograph letter thanking the recipients for a food parcel, written and signed by Julius and Else (Elsa) Oppenheimer — the two recurring writers of this correspondence, resident in München. THE DATE IS THE CRITICAL POINT: the dateline reads "den 18.3.1942" (18 March 1942), NOT the 18 July 1942 given in the catalogue metadata; the month digit is a German handwritten 3, not a 7. The March reading is the only one historically possible, since Julius and Elsa Oppenheimer were deported from Munich to the Piaski ghetto near Lublin at the beginning of April 1942 and died there that month (Elsa's recorded death date is 1942-04-04). This letter therefore appears to have been written roughly two weeks before their deportation, and its ordinary domestic content — a parcel, a jam jar, warmer weather, an anticipated visit from "lb. Karl" — stands immediately before that.

On this transcription

Machine transcription (claude-opus-5) — not yet checked against the original scan. 1 passage marked doubtful in the text.

Re-read from the original scan on 2026-07-28. Legibility: good. [?] marks are deliberate gaps, not transcription errors. DATE: read as "den 18.3.1942". Day = "18" (a continental angular 8; "10" cannot be excluded outright but the glyph is not an oval). Month = a single digit written as a German handwritten 3 (angular top, open bottom bowl, NO crossbar); a 7 in this hand would carry a crossbar and there is none. A checker should verify this digit first, because the metadata date 1942-07-18 depends on it. FORMAT: this is NOT a 25-word Red Cross (DRK/CICR) message form — it is a free-form handwritten letter of about 120 words on a plain sheet, with no printed form elements, no word-count box and no agency stamps. That is itself evidence against a mid-1942 date. NAMES: signature is clearly "Julius u. Else." (the wife signs "Else", not "Elsa"). "Karl" is written clearly three times (compare the K of "Karten" and "kam"); it is not "Fritz". WORDS I AM UNSURE OF: the heavily struck-out word before "Marmeladeglas", read as "das" [?]; the line-end "herzlich" / "herzliches", where the ending runs off the right edge of the sheet; "Euchliebenden" in "Eure Euchliebenden" (an unusual but attested closing formula — the u carries the Kurrent u-breve, not an umlaut); "Vergellts Gott" is written with a doubled l. ADDRESSEE: the letter opens "Meine Lieben" with no address block on this sheet, and "freuen uns schon auf Deinen lb. Besuch, lb. Karl" implies Karl could physically visit the writers, which sits awkwardly with an overseas (New York) recipient; I cannot resolve from this sheet alone who "Meine Lieben" are, and have not assumed Mina Kaufmann. Revised readings: I first scanned the dateline as consistent with the metadata (18.7.1942) and then, on 6x magnification of the digits, settled on 18.3.1942 — the month glyph has no crossbar and closes into a bottom bowl, which is a 3. This single change removes the impossibility flagged in the assignment: the writers were alive on 18 March 1942 and dead by the end of April. Second change: the word inserted above the struck-out word in "Deinen lb. ... lb. Karl" — I first read the insertion as a repetition of "Brief", then on magnification read the struck word as "Brief" and the superscript insertion as "Besuch". Third: the script is upright modern German Latin cursive (Sütterlin-influenced only in the u-breve), NOT Kurrent, so the brief's Kurrent letterform cautions apply only marginally here.