Hidden treasure

Coming to America as refugees when they were teenagers, my mother and uncle decided the best way to survive was to fit in and not dwell on the past. And who could blame them? I regretted not having done a better job of asking questions, even though there was little encouragement to do so. I believed the stories died with them. How wrong I was!

After my uncle died in 2017, we discovered that he had kept papers, letters, documents, and stories that go back over 100 years. This discovery changed my life. I had been happily retired for a few years and had begun to think about what I would do next. Discovering the contents of my uncle’s closet gave me my answer.

For several months I sifted through piles and boxes, each time finding new treasures. Along the way, I’ve gathered a village of people who have helped and encouraged me on my journey.

At one point I realized that I had something very special, but felt paralyzed to proceed because I had no idea how to organize and keep track of everything. Through the daughter of friends, I found Kelsey Holmes - an archivist who organized everything and created a digital archive. She shared my curiosity and enthusiasm, giving me confidence that I had something worth saving and sharing. One day after I thought I’d found everything there was to find, I discovered a smallish envelope stuffed with letters written on airmail paper. The contents looked old and brittle, so I gave the envelope to Kelsey to handle. Like a magician pulling out an endless handkerchief, Kelsey pulled out almost 100 letters written over about 18 months from my grandmother to her children after they had made it to San Francisco and she was stuck in Vienna trying with Vitali to find a way to join them.

On this journey I regretted never having learned German (I took a quarter at Cal in 1980, but that’s it), since the majority of the letters and papers were in German. I really didn’t know what story or stories I had. Happily, I remembered and got back in touch with a friend from college who has a PhD in German and is as enthusiastic as Kelsey about the project. We are making discoveries together. To be more efficient, we get together every few weeks and she reads over a letter to herself, looks up words she doesn’t know, and then translates aloud as I record her and later type the transcription. Recently Roslyn finished translating the 100 letters mentioned above. These letters tell us about life in Vienna in wartime, their efforts to emigrate, my grandmother’s memories and stories, and much more.

Someone pointed me to a lecture by a historian in Hamburg who had written a book called “Turkey, the Jews, and the Holocaust.” It turned out in researching the book, she had found information about my grandmother and after I tracked her down she has been incredibly helpful and become a friend.

These are just a few members of my new tribe.

The one thing that’s come through loud and clear is that my grandmother wanted to tell her story. I am happy and honored to be able to do that now.