Object numberM2016/039:002
DescriptionThis letter from the A.J.D.C to Lotte Ostertag following up on her request to migrate to Turkey to join her fiancé Mr. Mahir. According to them they had to heard from her since.
Lotte’s response is handwritten in German on the same paper. She is jaded and disillusioned by the process. She writes “Once we believed that you came here to help us, however your attitude is the same as that of a foreign nation.”
She has tried to get in touch with them but cannot go to Belsen as a result of neither having the fare and due to difficulties in walking. The front of her feet being amputated due to frost bite suffered from the death march. She has tried to call and the post in not much more reliable.
Lotte’s response is handwritten in German on the same paper. She is jaded and disillusioned by the process. She writes “Once we believed that you came here to help us, however your attitude is the same as that of a foreign nation.”
She has tried to get in touch with them but cannot go to Belsen as a result of neither having the fare and due to difficulties in walking. The front of her feet being amputated due to frost bite suffered from the death march. She has tried to call and the post in not much more reliable.
Production placeGermany
Subjectpost World War II, bureaucracy, loved ones' contact, American Joint Distribution Committee, emigration, displaced persons
Object nameletters
Dimensions
- height: 260.00 mm
width: 205.00 mm
Language
- German Letter from the envelope of 23.12.46
From A.J.D.C
Hohne –Belsen
Kreis Cille
In pencil in the back of the letter from A.J.D.C
Dear Miss L., (Lottie Levinson) 27.1.47
Today I received your letter of 23.Dec.1946. It is strange how long a letter from your organization takes from Celle to Hannover, especially as the cars of your committee probably visit Hannover once a week. Furthermore it is more peculiar that an organization that should look after people from concentration camps follows the bureaucratic guidelines of public offices and administration. Once we believed that you came here to help us, however your attitude is the same as that of a foreign nation.
I explained my situation to one of your officers/officials in the spring of last year, it was forgotten. My fiancé addressed your office in Turkey in Istanbul, also in vain. After I gained contact with Mrs. Ben…..’s secretary by phone after trying for days and explained that I did not have the fare nor the strength (the fronts of both my feet have been amputated and I walk with a walking stick) to come to Belsen, I was once again forgotten. I and all the comrades, who do not profit from the Black Market, ask ourselves, why are your offices there? If one wants to help, the one should and must come to those who are in need of help! I was myself a social worker, but I do not believe that one has to study at a university how to help; a true Jewess knows that to help one listens to the heart!
I am convinced that you and all of your colleagues will smile about me, for unfortunately not every Jew in the world today is aware that he is a representative of an outlawed community and that he has to represent it, always and everywhere.
Naturally I could tell you my “antiquated” views in English, but what good would that do, this letter, together with hundreds of others will end up in the waste paper bin; one just calls it a “German” Jewess, who is again “selected”. Only now not by Hitler but by Jews. If you had read my documents carefully you would not have asked the quite funny question whether I still wanted to go to my fiancé. We are 2 mature people and have been engaged for the last 8 years. Because of the emigration laws of the day we were unable to come together in 1938. So we were held here till the SS put us in a camp for 4 years. If all Jews, whether rich or poor, are able to walk around, there will never be an emigration,
With kind regards,
L.O.
Credit lineSydney Jewish Museum Collection, Donated by Annette Brett