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Raizel Garncarz
Letter to Sala Garncarz, in Yiddish, Karlstad, Sweden, December 20, 1945
NYPL, Dorot Jewish Division, Sala Garncarz Collection
Dear Sala,
I just thought, dear child, that today I should write to you
in Yiddish. I am sure that you will not be angry at me for it.
So often, I feel guilty. I imagine our dear father is near me
and he says, Raizel, could it be that I put all my hopes in you
and that you don’t even write in Yiddish?
Surely, we owe this to them, to write in the language in
which our parents spoke to us, and in the language in which
we spoke to our parents. I must admit that it is harder for
me because I’m thinking again in Polish. And then it
comes again to my mind, how they earned [the right for us
to write in Yiddish], even if we have to struggle to give
them this gift? How many sleepless nights did they spend
with us and how many days would they go without food when,
God forbid, something was wrong with a child? What wouldn’t
our dear mother do to put a child back on her feet? Nothing
was too difficult for her.
It is 12 o’clock now on Friday. I see our dear mother
fussing in the kitchen to prepare for Shabbat, our father
getting ready to welcome a guest. Ah, that’s all my
imagination. I wish I had at least a picture, so that I could
at least be able to kiss his high forehead and his long grey
beard. When you came home the first and only time from Geppersdorf
to see us, it was also on a Friday. How happy we all were,
how quickly it passed by. How hopeful our dear father was
to see you still alive. I read every one of your letters
to him ten times. He was so sorry to put them away. You can’t
imagine what it meant to him, how he talked the whole day
about your return home.
Beyond his words, Sala, I see our father again, his voice
comes to me again. Our dear parents, they gave us their future,
and it was our job to find you.
…
My letters chase each other, one after the other, so don’t
be surprised if they aren’t so systematically written.
I need for us to be together because I feel anxious from
this correspondence: writing all my feelings, our dearest,
writing, writing, writing, every free moment.
Again, I hate to separate from you because when I write to you,
I am with you….
Raizel
