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.

November, 1946

Life in Germany has not changed much. It is still very easy going for us here inside the compound gates, and yet so very many difficulties and frictions, poverty and distress on the other side of the gates. You may have heard that FIAT men live in Bad Homburg now, which means a great amount of travelling every day. I have been in the field very much during the last few months, and have more and more to work on with the microfilm project. I spend much of my time in the British zone and I can judge with my own eyes that conditions there are anything but good and are deteriorating. More and more plants have to reduce their output, steel production is declining and fewer goods are available in the open market than ever before. It is slightly better in our zone, due to the greater agricultural area and the great amount of money which the Americans are putting into the country. But on the whole it looks pretty bad and if this winter is very cold, it will be anything but lovely. Starvation and famine exist, particularly in the British zone in the big towns of the Rhine and Ruhr. A manager of a factory tells me he and his family of three have been living on four beet roots for the last two days, bread being unobtainable in Dusseldorf as well as potatoes and any other food.  The whole country looks like it is becoming a slum. One can only be surprised that there aren’t riots. The conditions in the Russian Zone are not much better and have the added scourge of fear. People do not dare to talk aloud in the tramcars and are arrested and taken from their homes without reason or warrants.  
      Central Europe is anything but decent. People hate each other and do everything possible to make life disagreeable. You can hardly imagine the attitude of the average Bavarian to the refugees from the East, and the amount of running to the police and denouncing one’s neighbors. The food situation, particularly in towns like Essen or Dussledorf is grim beyond description. People sit in the cold, the light fades out or is dimmed to almost uselessness every day, and  there is nothing to eat. Millions of refugees have to  be crammed in the overcrowded area. Why one agreed to accept several millions of refugees from Eastern Germany without making provisions to feed them I do not understand. Most of the good will which England and the western democracies enjoyed a year ago has gone. They believe that England is starving them purposely. One has the feeling the Ruhr is near complete collapse.
          My mother and some other friends want me to stay in England, but I am hoping to go to the states before very long. I personally never got to like England enough, or to put it better, England never got to like me enough. I always feel there as a stranger. I don’t feel that way with the Americans. I have met many very nice and good people, many rather primitive ones, but on the whole, I like them.  I had planned to go to the States during 1946, but the reorganization of the quota system made this impossible.