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Letter on a postcard, handwritten and signed by David Vogel. Sent to Shimon Pollack in Detroit. Vienna, April 14, 1923.
In the letter, Vogel asks his childhood friend to help him distribute his book of poems among Hebrew-lovers in Detroit and also find him a reliable person to sell additional copies of the book in New York [in the year the letter was written, Vogel's first book of poems was published in Vienna, "Lifnei HaSha'ar Ha'Afel" (Before the Dark Gate) – the only book of poems he published in his lifetime). At the end of the letter, Vogel describes his poverty and sickness: "I am sick and bone-tired. And my wife is sick. And the hunger is terrible. Real hunger. And the despair. […] I am in such distress, such that I cannot even describe it to you. And I do not know what I am going to do. I think of immigrating at the end of the summer to Palestine, to Haifa. By myself. My wife shall remain in Austria some more" (Hebrew). [His plan to travel to Palestine did not come to pass and Vogel visited Palestine for the first time only in 1929].
The poet and writer David Vogel (1891-1944) lived alternately in Vienna, Paris, Warsaw and elsewhere. In 1919, he married his wife, Ilka, and that year, they were both diagnosed with tuberculosis. In 1929, he visited Palestine, yet did not settle in it and after a year, returned to Europe. During World War II, he lived in occupied France and in February 1944 was transferred to Germany, where he was murdered by the Nazis.
Shimon Pollack was Vogel's childhood friend; eventually he became one of the prominent figures in the field of Jewish education in the USA.
9X14 cm. Good condition. Horizontal fold line in the center of the postcard. Tears and minor blemishes to margins.
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