Rebecca Gratz to Miriam Gratz Moses Cohen - December 16, 1857

Writing to her niece Miriam, Rebecca shares her concerns about the Civil War and names some acquaintances who joined a volunteer regiment for the Union. She also gives an account of Julia Hoffman's declining heath and gives other updates regarding the health and whereabouts of family and friends.

Rebecca writes to her brother Ben relieved to hear that he has returned safely from his travels.

Rebecca writes to her sister-in-law Maria about the current state of politics and the upcoming presidential inauguration, recent literature she has read, and gives her updates on family and friends.

Anne Dore Russell, née Weidemann, a non-Jew, was born in Brandenburg, Germany in 1926. She went to school from 1933 to 1945 in Brandenburg. Her father told her about experiences of Germans opposed to Hitler. She knew that her uncle was sent to Sachsenhausen and heard about a Jehovah’s Witness who was imprisoned and later killed for his beliefs. A neighbor who had been a Nazi sympathizer, had a mental breakdown after executing Jews as a soldier on the Eastern Front. She speaks briefly about Kristallnacht and life in Branderburg under the Nazis. Her father, a civil servant, lost his position in 1933 because he was a Social Democrat and belonged to the Socialist Party (SPD). He told Anne Dore why he opposed the Nazi regime. He avoided using the “Heil Hitler” salute and secretly listened to the BBC (British Broadcasting Company). She learned to be careful in public because of her father’s beliefs. The local police took her father into protective custody in July 1944 during a roundup of men suspected of involvement in a plot to assassinate Hitler. She mentions the behavior of local Nazis near the end of the war, after which she went to Humbold University in East Berlin and then the Free University in West Berlin.

Rebecca shares family news with her sister-in-law Maria, comments on a controversy at Transylvania University and recommends new reading material.