Enclosure: 1 censored letter

Dear Manfred,

How are you?  What do you do all day long?  So far I am OK.  I am still in the convalescence barrack in îlot J.  Visiting hours are this afternoon and until then I want to finish the letter for you.  I also wrote Lorle.  I have plenty of spare time.  Mama could use some of it.  Got mail from Papa last week.  According to him, he is OK.  He is more satisfied with himself there than here.  He received a little package from Albert and Richard.  He can sure use it.  We could not visit him yet.  Hope that he will be on his feet again real soon.  If Mama could cook for him, he would sure be cured fast.  I don’t have much to write to you today.  I have to think hard.  I just wrote you in detail and too much news isn’t always so good.  Up till now I wrote in bed.  I just got up to catch some fresh air.  However, the sun is somewhat covered today.  That does not mean anything.  I want to write you our luncheon menu.  In the mess kit: Beanmeal soup with a little spinach (nice and thick).  In the insert plate: carrots with meat and gravy.  It tasted wonderful, just like something from Mama’s kitchen.  Yesterday, there were turnips.  Was very good.  I wish everyone here would get this kind of food.  And what do you get?  We get halva almost every other day, in the morning with our coffee and milk, 1 – 2  heaping tablespoons.  Yesterday 1-1/4 spoon.  This morning, we got jam, at least 5 spoons.  Now I really don’t know anything more to write.  So best regards and kisses, dear little Fred, from your brother

HUGO

Uncle Sally wasn’t here yet.  He is being shipped somewhere else and has to postpone his furlough.  He thinks perhaps in 4 weeks.  I want to see if that comes true.  I’ll believe it when I see him.  Again, many regards and kisses.

HUGO

Dear Manfred!  Yesterday we got your postcard which made us all very happy.  You write like a grown up, because you think of so many things.  It is better if you write Albert yourself. You do it so well anyhow.  He will most likely give you permission to visit him, if you get time off.  Don’t you think so too?

This afternoon we had pattern making again.  Now it is already pretty warm, yesterday it was downright hot, like at home in the middle of summer.  What do you play there?  As to my leaving here, that does not work out as fast as you think.  I registered with OSE to work for families with children, also with the Swiss Schwester.  I am going to see the Schwester once more later because Lorle wrote that she has so much work and could use someone.  Ria went there yesterday.  And Joseph Cohn and two Spaniards also, I think.  Lorle sent pictures.  She and Bob[1] look like they will burst soon, they are so fat.  Did you also gain weight already?  Keep writing your menu.  For the time being the food is good here.  At lunch noodle soup and at night mostly thick vegetable soup.  Today Schirrmann asked who wants to get out to work as a housekeeper, for those over 18 years.  So I registered.  And who wants to go in convalescence to a colonie [2], for those under 18.  So I registered Hugo.  Herbert W. got permission to ride the teacher’s bicycle because he knew his stuff so well in school.  Their school benches are standing in the sun and they have class outside.  Great.  The persistent rumor is that we must move to another îlot.  However, when and where, nobody knows.  Tell Werner Schwarz[3] that his mother said that he should not be so lazy and write more often.  There is a lot of beautiful cauliflower in Perpignan, but they never had any in the cantine.  Sec. Suisse is always great, mostly with peameal cereal.  Very seldom do we get anything more after that.  Karolinchen[4] has written again.  Ilse is as tall as her mother.  And Aunt Karoline K. also wrote today.  She had been sick.  On Saturday, I got to the Oneg too late, so I got nothing.  I was at the post office, Aunt Vita sent a duck carcass.  Most of the meat had been cut off, but we could still cook a good soup.  I have to close now, Mama is chasing me away to see the Schwester, as she also wants to write.  Regards

MARGOT

My dear darling little Fred,

My best thanks for your postcard, I enjoyed it tremendously.  Your writing is so cute and so mature, you think of everything.  Yes, my child, you are learning early in life to worry about others and to be alone.  How about your laundry?  Your blue cap was in Papa’s coat, we could have looked for it forever.

We got a package with useless curios, but there was a brown cap that would fit you.  I’ll forward it to you at the first opportunity.  Do you need your grey suit?  When are you going to travel to Lyon?  Write to Albert by yourself, you know how to write so well.  Write that I wrote you that he should invite you and that he should do it during Pessach, as you cannot observe Pessach there and that you always have to think of home, where it was always so nice, that we always had matzo, even here, or he should write to your directeur.  This year I cannot make matzo balls for your birthday.  So we hope for better next year my dear little Fritz.

Keep writing exactly what kind of food you get and what you do all day long as we are interested in everything that concerns you.  Do you always eat your fill?  Here the food quality is better, but not the quantity.  Do you know what quality is = the preparation = the taste.  Quantity = amount.  How do you get along with the Spaniards?  Did you have a fight yet?  I enclose Papa’s letter.  I sent the other letters with Ria to Lorle.  If you could only eat so much that you would become as fat as she is now. She is again our cherub with trombone on the pictures she sent.  I am sending her letter to Papa.  She is always sorry that you are not with her.  Abwarten und Tee drinken [5] If I received such pictures from all of you, I wouldn’t mind being alone..  In good time, Papa should get better, G’d willing.  In any case, they can do more for him there than here.  Müllner, you know, who was a teacher in 31 during the summer, died.  There aren’t many more children here, no more boys got out.  Starting last week, those who attended religion class 3 times got 2 little bars[6] instead of 1 for all the others.  You can imagine how happy they are and that many attend just for that.  Miss Weil distributes all the time.  I also receive 2, as I attend the Oneg and also attend rel. class.  I also get one for Hugo.  We always have something to cook even if we did not get anything worthwhile lately.   However, upon my request, Albert, Richard and Jules[7] sent Papa a package, I am so glad that he got something.  They should always send.  Now that it is getting warmer, he will recuperate better.  You, my dear nature lover, will  enjoy the gorgeous scenery in its spring bloom.  Keep drawing diligently and delight us with your pictures, you can also decorate Albert’s letter.   His address is: Albert Rosenfeld, 8 rue des Castries, Lyon, (Rhône).  Now my darling Manfred, with heartfelt regards and a thousand kisses and I hug you tightly.

Your MAMA

[2] Home for children (mostly underprivileged during the war)

[3] Another Jewish boy in Grammont.

[4] Karoline Löb (from Philippsburg) writing from another camp.

[5] German expression meaning: Wait and see.

[6] Fig paste stick.

[7] Could be Julius Wagner, Papa’s cousin living in Argentina.