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Sala Garncarz
Letter to Mrs. Jennie Kirschner, in Yiddish, Ansbach, Germany, January 5, 1946
NYPL, Dorot Jewish Division, Sala Garncarz Collection
To the mother of Sidney,
Before I took the pen in my hand, I turned it over a few times
and I came to the conclusion that I have to do it, it’s
my obligation. I’m hoping that I’ll be properly understood.
Ah! If I could only find the proper words.… it’s very
difficult for me. But I have to do it so that my conscience will
be clean and I will never feel guilty. The time is short.
Sidney will return home soon where he’s been impatiently
awaited. He longs to be home. He and I want the same thing, but
it is something I won’t and can’t accept, something
I will not make a decision about before we get the blessings and
the acceptance of Sidney’s mother. This is not a child’s
game and it is not something you can buy, or something that you
can change with time. No! It is a life’s problem, a life’s
question.
Unfortunately, I was not given the happiness of being able to
ask my dearest mother for her blessing. The future dealt me heavy
blows when it took the holiest and the best from me, to be able
to say the word “mother” or to write and ask whether
it is right for me to be married.
So we acknowledge that this is our obligation, to be waiting
and waiting. For what? For the permission of Sidney’s mother.
We are not getting an answer. Why? I can answer this question
myself. It is possible that my parents would handle this the same
way: we don’t really know each other. A child is everything
to a mother, especially the youngest child. Like Sidney, I am
also the youngest child. We want the best for them, to see everything
nicer, bigger, better. And if we don’t know where they are
going, or with whom they go, so far away, we don’t have
faith. We are not sure. I can understand and tolerate this, but
we have now reached the final minute.
About me, there’s nothing much to write, a plain Jewish
girl from a kosher home and that’s all. I think it’s
enough. I’m putting my future in this letter. If a positive
answer comes, the way we are hoping, then we remain happy. If
not, then it’s difficult but I’ll have to say like
a Jew says, always, everything is for the best. Whichever way
the answer should be, please write and don’t pay attention
to my words, only answer what your heart and feelings are.
Please forgive that I’m writing in Yiddish and not perfect
Yiddish—but you do forget how to write and I don’t
know English at all.
Sala
