October 1946

(From a letter to a friend, Dr Judith Miller, who immigrated to Palestine)
I am interested in whether you managed to go to Palestine this year. Conditions there, I gather, are anything but enjoyable. It is a great pity that all this trouble had to come. The British, of course, are in an extremely difficult situation as long as the American government is not willing to back them up and to help them to face the consequences of the large number of immigrants. The Russians are doing everything possible to stir up trouble and support the Arabs, and the British alone feel not strong enough to face a big Arab opposition. Their main fault, in my opinion, lies in fact, that they did not try to settle the Palestinian problem before the war. But what did Chamberlain do after all? I think very much indeed of the present Labour government, and believe that they are the most progressive and positive influence during the last ten years, and perhaps the last century. And yet, they still have difficulties all over the world.
     I have had enough of Europe and am rather unhappy my visa has not yet been granted. I expected it to take six months and that was a year ago. I would like to get settled and find a real permanent job. I still hope it will be during 1946, but my hope is getting fainter every day. People who come out of concentration camps or have been persecuted by the Nazis get preference, rightly so, over those who are not in the same plight. Still, I wish my turn would come soon and sometimes I wonder whether I should not go back to England after all. But very much attracts me to the Sates. I have been working with Americans for more than a year now, and I like them, their open-mindedness, the fact that you are not a b... foreigner, the quickness with which they correct mistakes, and the technical progress which you feel in every detail.
     I have no interest in going to Moravska Ostrava. (Where the family steel factory was in Czechoslovakia) Conditions there are impossible for anyone who is not a real true blue Czech, and a good Communist as well. I am neither and prefer not to return. The country is recovering speedily, living conditions are better than elsewhere in Central Europe, but I hear and see too much of Communist pressure and dictatorship to wish to live under those circumstances. You can hardly imagine what life looks like in the Eastern Zone of Germany. It reminds you very much indeed of Germany in 1934. There is no freedom of thought, fear of arrests, concentration camps exist in Oranienburg (although with better treatment than under the Nazis) ( read about Oranienburg here ) arrests occur without reason, and for undetermined periods.
      Men lose their jobs, and their ration cards if they remain social democrats. I am seeing a rather dark future and am skeptical that our way of thinking and the Russian way will ever compromise. Germany is in a terrible mess. The Western Allies did not realize that one has to get industry going  to some extent, until it became frightfully too late. They have not given the Germans anything to live for- no creed or belief. That is where the Russians have gained the upper hand. They are still detested by many, but economic success will count for a lot and hunger in the West, plus unemployment and the cold will hardly convince Germans of the better way of democracy. We have to do something better, otherwise we shall have chaos in Europe once again in the near future. The American Zone is the best organized at the moment, but the American taxpayer has to pay for it, and that can hardly go on forever.