My Dears,
Even if you imagined the worst, you would not come close to understanding our hardship and distress. We are not exaggerating in the least when we tell you that we would rather have risked being shot a thousand times and kept hiding in CZ than come here. Never before have we been so poor and, in particular, hopeless. We are hunted down like animals, in constant fear, with nowhere to go and, above all, with no prospect of making it through the winter. Yet, strange as it may sound, we are still attempting to preserve this wretched life, to endure this ordeal. With almost no glimmer of hope we still look forward to better days. We cling to the one possibility of establishing a connection with you
and of receiving such incomparably urgent help from you that could sustain our plain, most modest lives.
My dear, I´m not sure whether I found the right words to describe our unfortunate situation to you. It would be much easier just to tell you that we are simply without money, that we have lost our belongings, in part they were taken away from us, that food is terribly expensive even for those with money (30 and more rubles for bread, 2 rubles for an egg, 60 rubles for 50 kg of wood, 400 rubles monthly rent, etc., etc.). Mind you, we received one ruble for 40 leu.
We don´t possess valuables like watches or the like. We don´t possess anything anymore except the certainty that unless help arrives quickly, we will be dying miserably just as thousands of others will. We often talk about dying, for us it is no longer the worst escape of all, there are more horrid things than that. We were expelled from Atachi, and again from Moghilev, where we slept in the cold and dirt of a demolished house without any windows, and where we asked God to be left there. Now we are in Schangorod, 45 km from Moghilev, and it’s likely we will soon be expelled to a village, hopefully the last destination then.
There are no opportunities to earn money, and anyone who still possesses something gives a pair of shoes in exchange for two loaves of bread! But we need money if we are to survive the winter; so that we are able to eat potatoes once a day, like now, lie on the floor of a farmhouse room with no stove, at 15º, and not thinking about what is still to come. The coat that serves us as a blanket at night (it’s long since we had bedding) we wear it crumpled-up during the day, and that’s just how we look. We want to endure everything, as now, but it must not get worse, as it is unbearable. Please try everything to help us quickly
and not let us die so cruelly, without your help we cannot persevere much longer. We want to experience happy days once again, and to be treated as human beings. – Unfortunately, only a few hid their money properly and we are not among the lucky ones. All our valuables (watches, jewellery, the Rautzerl with the Kolodrat ) were taken from us. We were left with a very light rucksack and thanked God that we were allowed to live. Many lost even this. They are not the unluckiest. We need ruble, or else leu.
Please send us food, medication is unobtainable, soap, sugar, wool. Please give all of that to the messenger of this letter. At the same time, write to us, otherwise find a courier, perhaps you want to turn to the Landwehrs, Merang[asse] 10, who have already sent packets and money to their relatives here and from whose address we wish to receive this from you. Act fast, soon we will be snowed in or won´t be here anymore! Please show this letter to the Rittbergs, Slowackigasse 15. We are with Dr Weisner.