Long letter (two pages; 32 lines) handwritten and signed by Rebbetzin Chaya Roiza, daughter of Rebbe Yoel Teitelbaum of Satmar. Sent to their relative in Switzerland, the attendant R. Yosel Ashkenazi. [Jerusalem, 1945.] Yiddish (and some Hebrew).
Letter from Rebbe Yoel Teitelbaum’s only daughter still alive after the Holocaust (her two sisters had passed away earlier in 1921 and 1931). Her father the Rebbe and his attendant R. Yosel Ashkenazi were staying in Geneva, Switzerland at that time (after they were rescued in the Kastner train), and they were waiting to get an immigration visa to Eretz Israel. [His daughter, Rebbetzin Chaya and her husband R. Chananya Yom Tov Lipa Mayer-Teitelbaum, were rescued in a different way, and reached Jerusalem about a year earlier. They all later immigrated together to the United States.]
In her letter, the Rebbetzin describes at length her own and her husband R. Chananya Yom Tov Lipa’s efforts to get an immigration visa to Eretz Israel, and the high costs and bureaucratic difficulties, and her husband’s voyage to Safed to find documentary evidence that R. Yosel was born in Eretz Israel and emigrated with his father to Hungary in his youth.
Rebbetzin Chaya Roiza goes on to write her hopes that he would hear good tidings from his wife Pessel and his dear children, and she encourages him with the news that most Hungarian Jews were rescued and are now returning to Hungary: “The newspapers here write that most of the Jews are returning to Hungary! Near Vienna there are 170,000 Hungarian Jews, and in Budapest there are 150,000 Jews, but they can’t be contacted…”. She goes on to say that R. Yudel Schwartz and his children were rescued and are now in Satmar, and she asks if he has news from some family members.
In the last part of the letter she writes that she sent him a Tallit Katan: “It is not Turkish but made in Eretz Israel, because here we can only get local merchandise”. And she adds regarding getting an immigration visa for her father, the Rebbe: “Regarding the certificate for my father, we hope that with God’s help the matter will come to an end, but we have to wait a bit”.
She ends the letter with a request for him to write to her frequently, and she hints at problems with the British censor disposing of many letters – “because when one writes a lot, a little arrives” – and she signs the letter with wishes and blessings: “we hope every day to hear good tidings from you, may God help, and may we merit to hear good tidings from all our families – Chaya Roiza”.
On the margins of the leaf is written in pen: “Sent 28.5.45 – received 8.6.45”.
[1] leaf. 20.5x20.5 cm. Good condition. Folds. Minor stains. Pin holes in the margins.
