318 words
bei Frau Elsa Ettmayr
12 Kaltenbach
Traunstein
D 8220 Oberbayern
[Late July or August 1982]
Dearest Beryl,
A thousand most hearty thanks for your kind letter, received days ago.
I am so glad that you have at last found a job in Munich — not far from where I shall again be in a few days’ time — next Wednesday evening in fact. You will make the acquaintance of Frau Ettmayr whenever you come to see me: she is one of the best, and very kind as well as remarkably full of sound common sense — a rare quality in our dark days. You can ring her up: the end (four last figures) of her phone number is — if I remember well — 4221 — but I have forgotten the three first figures.
I have been very happy — in spite of my declining eyesight and stiffening body — among these extraordinarily kind, understanding, and extremely well-informed friends. Many a time I have felt ashamed of my own poor knowledge — especially concerning German medieval and later history — when compared to theirs. Frau Schrader is all the more praiseworthy that during her school days, there was in Germany no teaching of history at all for children or adolescents. She learnt the lot by herself, in well-chosen books (far better than the amount of falsehood that one learns nowadays in schools not only in Germany but everywhere in Europe!). As for Herr Schrader, he is a real scholar, whose talk is for me a delectation.
You cannot imagine how grateful I am to be out of the dreary, depressing old women’s home where I was in France! Blessed good riddance! I pray all the Gods of Northern and Southern Aryandom that I may never see a similar place again — nor a doctor, nor a hospital! — and that I die soon before becoming totally blind.
With the best of love and the everlasting greeting of faith and pride,
Yours as ever,
Savitri