Letters from Dotnuva

« Previous Page

Table of Contents

Next Page »

Letters from Dotnuva (cont.)

Translated by Sara Mages

Edited by Yocheved Klausner

5 XII, 1935

Dear Leah. Shalom Rav,
Yesterday to the day, two weeks ago, I arrived to America. Therefore I cannot write much about the life here. The city is huge. I have seen many parts of it, but it's only a small part compared to what there is to see. Each day we travel to a different section of the city, stay there until the afternoon and then travel back home with our uncle at 6:00pm. Last Sunday we drove with our uncle many hours to see the city. I lifted my head up to see the height of the tall buildings, but it's hard to see the end of them. There are long streets which belong to Rockefeller. One building, they say, has eighty stories. I started counting, but I couldn't hold my head up for so long.
On Shabbat (Saturday) I went to the library which was built twenty years ago. It is a beautiful library decorated with hand drawn pictures that I have never seen in my whole life. There is so much to see that one has to go back many times to see it all.
The standard of living here is higher than in our place. I don't really know yet how people live and work here but I do know that they make more money than the do in our place (Europe). You probably would like to know what I do here. I have no worries of getting by. I think of studying some English and then start working. I have no idea what kind of work and on what terms it's going to be. I am studying at a school for adults who came from abroad to the United States. There are many immigrants who came over from all over the world, especially Germany. I have met different types of people from all walks of life. I study here four times a week on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday four hours in each day from 10am-12pm and from 1pm-3pm. That means that I stay in school five hours in addition I spend two hours traveling back and forth. In the evenings I read the newspaper, listen to the radio, do my homework and that is it. I have seen some of our relatives. I believe you received my letters which I wrote from home. The aunt and uncle try to make sure that I'm not bored. The clothes I brought from home are fine here, the fashion styles are the the same.
What about you? How do you feel? I can imagine you waking up at 5 in the morning where it's cold and dark, but what there is to do? Do you wear the warm coat? Do you have warm socks? What do you hear from the family at home? Write the truth to me about the home and family and everything that is happening to you. Oh how much I want to know about everything. Write me a long detailed letter.
Be whole and healthy and write me a letter soon,
Yours Freida

« Previous Page

Table of Contents

Next Page »

This material is made available by JewishGen, Inc. and the Yizkor Book Project for the purpose of
fulfilling our mission of disseminating information about the Holocaust and destroyed Jewish communities.
This material may not be copied, sold or bartered without JewishGen, Inc.'s permission. Rights may be reserved by the copyright holder.

JewishGen, Inc. makes no representations regarding the accuracy of the translation. The reader may wish to refer to the original material for verification.
JewishGen is not responsible for inaccuracies or omissions in the original work and cannot rewrite or edit the text to correct inaccuracies and/or omissions.
Our mission is to produce a translation of the original work and we cannot verify the accuracy of statements or alter facts cited.

Dotnuva, Lithuania Yizkor Book Project JewishGen Home Page

Yizkor Book Director, Lance Ackerfeld
This web page created by Lance Ackerfeld