Letters from Lida

Dear Dorechka!

I don’t even know what to think about your long silence. Are you in a good health and how is everybody’s health? What’s going on with Fanechka? I asked [about?] your friend a few times <?sputnik – friend, co-traveler > but <you or she> never responded. I am very interested if you finally got read (rid?) of him. As you can see from my letter to Fanya, I am alone with Papa now and I am very busy, that is why I also missed two weeks and did not write because I was waiting for your letter. It is will soon be a month without a letter from you. But today I decided to drop everything and to write you, although today I am very busy with <unclear> dinner and on the top of it I have to get ready for the wedding of Meilach’s sister Lubka with L. Katzenelbogen (1). You, Dorechka, probably remember him, because our Frida worked with him during the expedition. The wedding is going to be at 6 pm, in just two hours, in the house of Feigele Trotsky. I am so nervous about your silence that I don’t know what I am writing about. With hellish impatience I am waiting for your letter. Be healthy. Kissing you with love, be healthy, loving you mama Revekka.

August 1

Dear Fanechka!

I cannot explain your silence for such a long time, especially since Dora doesn’t write me either. It is almost a month that I did not have anything from you. In her last letter Dora did not write anything about you also, only that you were going to go to Tel Aviv. How are you doing, are you healthy and where are you, in Tel Aviv or Raanana? Only Papa and I are at home now, also Meilach and Abram (2). Shayna, (3) thank God, is better now and went to Novosilno three weeks ago already. Abram’s children are in Diatlevo , and Frida and Gitele went together with Lisa and the boy to Druskeniky to bathe and they’ve already been there two weeks.(4) Frida is taking for her glands bathes too, as she was advised, may God make it good for her. How is it about you, how is X? (5) I am waiting impatiently for your letter to find out everything about you. Moisey’s Robert has been here for more than three weeks, but they all are in Novosilno and I only saw him when he came. Be you all healthy, kissing you with love, loving you mama Revekka.

This letter was written 3 weeks after letter 63, which was written the day Shayna left.

(1) This would be Luba Trotsky, Frida’s sister-in-law. There are two Pages of Testimony for Lova/Luba Katznelenbogen, housewife, born 1913, who lived in Lida and died in Majdanek in 1942. Her husband was Arie K. Sara Gelfer submitted the 1913 birth date, while Pinkhas Kaplan said she was born in 1912, and that her 5-year-old son Shmuel was murdered with her in a camp in Lida. Neither page gives a maiden name. Pinkhas Kaplan also submitted a PoT for Arie K, son of Shoshana, clerk, born 1912, married to Tova nee Trotsky, died in the Lida ghetto. Kaplan’s testimonies are not dated the same date, but both were submitted in 1957. Possibly “Tova” should read “Lova”. Kaplan identified himself as a “friend” in his Pages of Testimony.

(2) Meilach: Frida’s husband, Meilach Trotsky, Abram : first cousin Abram Pupko
(3) Abram’s wife
(4) Novosilno, Druskeniki, Diatlevo: Novoselno is unidentified. Druskeniki = Druskininkai, Diatlevo = Dziatlava, a town south of the Lida District, proper.
(5) Name removed for privacy reasons.

Letters from Lida - 65