Berlin-Lichtenrade,Keithstr. 26m, Amerikanischer Sektor

den 16. Juni 1948

My dear cousins Robert and Gladys,

Not before yesterday I received your letter dated 2o of May. That happened, because I have been in hospital for some days. I have had an accident, but now I am perfectly recovered that I can write you a very long answer. Let me say you my hearty thanks for your dear letter. I was very pleased to hear, your son Jon and his wife Frances got a little baby. Be so kind and give them my congratulations and all my best wishes for the growing of the small girl.

It is a pitty that you haven't got my letter with the fotos from Dec. 11 and with the stamps from marsh 22. I think, always when there is anything in the envelope, the letters are stopped. Now I will try the following. I will send you one envelope with this letter in and another with fotos and stamps only. I have asked in the neighbourhood for stamps and lucky I got some. Perhaps you can need them. Your airmail-stamp, light blue with a brigde, 25 c worth, was hurt already when I got your letter. With fotos I can supply you now only with one from myself, for I have no more. But soon I will have a new one from Alexander too. When you are looking at my picture don't laugh about my short hair. It has been burnt off in the last days of war, and when the foto was taken it was just growing again.

It was very nice for me to read in your answer that you have such a large family and that all the relations are living with you in the same town. Than it is sure, that you have never the feeling to be alone.

Only for the case, you are interested, I will repeat something I have written you already in the letters which are lost. At first something about ourselves: When I married my husband, I had just left school and was 19 years old. That was in 1933. Walter was a cashier in the Staatsbank in Berlin for 23 years. We lived modestly but without any sorrows and troubles very happily together. In l937 we had saved so much that we could build a little house. We than took my mother in law to us. In Sept. 3. 1941 our son Alexander was born. But short before, my mother in law died suddenly at an age or 71. A single bomb fell in our garden and she got a stroke. Just at the same time I lost my own parents by air-raid. My husband has seen our son only twice than he died also in Russia in 1942. He was 41 years old. That was the hardest blow of my life. Till now I cannot overcome this loss. Now I was perfectly lonely and the hardest days stand before me. I will give you no description about this time. There are no words for me to do so. When my house was destroyed and I found myself alive and my boy in my arms too in a corner of my cellar, I prayed to God. But when the Russian arrived, I took my prayer of thanksgiving back as a mistake. I don't know whether you have heard anything about what the Russian have done here. These soldiers were no men, they were beasts. Especielly we women without exception had to suffer so dreadfully things which we can never forget. I will spare you details, they are too hideous. Whilst the last years of war our life was a fasting cure but now the real famine began. But there is the Black-Market, where people with money can buy everything. Our savings have been on the Staatsbank and this Bank is in the hands of the Russian, therefore all is lost. Till to day I have sold many things to buy bread and potatoes.

I have never bought another kind of food for it is too expensive for me. Look for one pound of fat I have to work one month, or when my boy needs shoes I have to work six month for. But this are only examples. Naturally I must pay my small flat and the small food-rations of our cards. There is never left money for fat or shoes or clothings. We adults can mend our things again and over again, but for the children it is a catastrophe. They are growing and all the little things don't fit them any more.

Don't be angry that I have told you so sad things, I will change the topic. In the second letter which is lost, I told you something about your family. I don't know, whether you know anything about the origin of the family Sy? If it is so, please pardon me, if not, may be you or your family will be interested. The former members of our family have been frenchmen. They belonged to the first protestants who were called Huguenots. In the 17 th century they had to fly from France to Germany. At this time the surname of our family had been "de Saveny". In Germany they changed their name. They took the first and the last letter only an so the formed the name "SY". This I know from an old frenche bible, which my husband got from his father. On the first pages one could read this things written by hand. All the offsprings in Germany belonged to the Frenche-Church. This is a church for Huguenots only. She is or better was standing in the centre of Berlin, and Walter and I have been married there also. In the old churchyard there have been very old tompstones with the name SY. Perhaps you know all from your late daddy already?

I fear our changing of letters will be cut off soon, for we all believe in a new war. I will not talk politics, but the situation between the Allied and the Russian is so dangerous that nobody can shut his eyes. Paticularly not we people in Berlin living between the forces of occupation from four countries. We are so brimfull of dreadful experiences of the hideous methods with which the Russian have tortured us (and they do so till to-day) that we fear and hate them like devils. The Headquarter of the American get daily many letters with the prayer not to leave us. For we all know for certain, if that will happen, we all are lost. From time to time the American Commandant of Berlin assured us by radio that he and his army will stay and no give way to the Russian. This is giving us always a new courage.

God gave I am wrong in my opinion about the coming war. But if it will be, take once more all my thanks for your great kindness to me. Many many grateful greetings to you and your family.

Always yours

Vera Sy