January 12, 1947

     We have moved from Hoechst to Karlsruhe. We are billeted in Durlach, about 6 miles away. In order for us to have our places to live, the Germans were cleared out of their houses, and the "organizing" or what was really looting of furniture reminded me of the tales I heard of Oynhausen (headquarters of the British army of occupation - this is what one article said about it: After the war the city was closed for the people of Bad Oeynhausen, and 2/3 of the inner city was fenced in with barbed wire. The people in this area had to leave their homes within 24 hours and what was left in the houses was burned by some (not all) of the British soldiers, regardless of being precious, sentimental or important to the owners. Also excrement was deposited in rooms or on beds......you see, not all the houses were used for accommodation.). The Germans sent protest telegram to their minister presidents, but the army wanted us there. One tried to evacuate Nazis and exempted politically sound people as far as possible, but the fact remains, that the people had to leave most of their belongings in their homes.

      I cannot understand what delays my visa so badly. I write and cable to Washington, but so far without success. I hope this year will see me in the states.
      I heard from my friend who lives in southern California. She writes a very interesting description of life there as follows: "I hope you will visit here for a while to gape and marvel and shake your head at southern California, and wonder whether the Creator in His whim has fashioned it as a kind of funny relief to Europe of the present. Life here is so much  "the other side of the coin" that it really looks as if it had been done on purpose. I never knew that sun, warmth, and abundance of food and goods could do so little to remedy the core irritation and dissatisfaction in people's lives. But there it is, undiminished - let me explain. One of Los Angeles' biggest newspaper men, Manchester Boddy  (read about Manchester Boddy ), wrote from Berlin the other day, that when he saw the tired food queue in front of a baker's shop break up in anger and disappointment because the rations had given out and they had waited for hours in vain and had to go home hungry, he was reminded of the same sights he had seen time and again at the ticket counters in Los Angeles before the annual football match. Reading such a comparison before I got here would have outraged me. Now I understand only too well what Boddy means, for similar comparisons simply force themselves upon me every day.
      At first you will enjoy it all tremendously. You will love the pretty practical house of our neighbor the truck driver. You will enjoy the ever-ready sun and the orange trees full of fruit, and the roses and carnations that will be flowering for your welcome as much as they are flowering now on the 2nd of February. A neighbor, an old woman, who had lived in Frankfurt throughout the war and gone through the whole post-war period, found sunny, abundant, overfed Los Angeles too much to bear. She now sits in her luxurious room or under the laden orange trees in the garden wrapped up in a desperate melancholia, a woman who was never given to deep brooding before in her life."