My darlings!
Thank you for the things you sent us through Mrs. Sava which were: 1sliced sausage, jam, sugar, 1 bar of laundry soap, 6 boxes of matches, 1 pack of tea, 1 box of shoe polish. I received the money for 3 people from Albert. Of those three I will easily be able to reach Fred, the others I first have to look for and then find reliable couriers who wouldn’t embezzle us out of our money. We are really desperate and so it’s hard to trust even upstanding people, the postal service in the province is also nonexistent. I can finally provide you with a faithful description of the conditions here. There is a serious food crisis, 1 small loaf of bread costs 400-500 lei and all other foodstuffs are just as expensive and unavailable and this has been exacerbated, especially over the past few weeks, because the ruble has become worthless and has been withdrawn. The farmers therefore don’t want to sell anything, but rather exchange goods and we have almost nothing that we can exchange. We did exchange a bar of soap and if you’re able, send us some soap and most of all some cooking fat, that’s the most important thing; Regina Novrotna (Ludwig) could send us some too (all kinds of fat), we’ve a real need for that. I’m attempting to obtain something through Mrs. Sava. It would thus be a lot easier and great for us to procure some wood and bread because she lives with the Dr. The bakery is not yet producing bread because there’s no flour and on top of that, bread would be too expensive anyway. For 3 weeks now, we’ve been staying in a little room at the Gottlieb family’s house and now, finally, the commune has given us 1 room, free of charge; we’re just delighted about this because there would be no way that we could afford to pay rent. Life is especially difficult for us, there are no [XXX] buckets and we don’t have everything that we could need but as time goes by, we’ll pull through, though only if we’re left in peace and not driven further or even sent to Basarab (the Jews often spread such terrible stories but they’re untrue). We were really worried when we heard talk of terrible rioting in Chernivtsi, which Obert denies. As I write, a carpenter is adjusting the doors and windows and today an oven is also being fitted. For now we’re still sleeping on the floor and, like most people, are louse-ridden.