(From Carl Gauss to Helen
Gauss, in Boston)
(Free translation)
Hameln, Germany
20 August 1923
Liebe Helen:
I wish to thank you for your
letter in July and the enclosed $20 which you and Cousin Sadie sent
to me. Please tell her I wrote you, and thank her very much.
You certainly were kind to help me so much; together with what your
Father sent, it was indeed a great help in the hard times which we have
to go through here now in Germany. Pardon my not writing sooner;
but to save the postage I wished to wait until your Father might write
also; and then I had to be away a few weeks, and so the letter was postponed.
I enclose a letter to your Father, and when you write to your home will
you be so kind as to send the letter there.
In the mean time, Our condition
has grown still worse in the last month, and one can't see what will
be the outcome of it all. The prices go up from day to day, our
money has no value at all, and we go nearer and nearer to bankruptcy.
For instance, railroad fares have gone up tenfold. A letter sent
in this country costs 2,000 Marks, and one sent to America costs 6,000
Marks. One has to save as much as possible and not make unnecessary
expenses, because all the money one has is needed for coal and food
and clothes. The times are hard indeed, with no sign of getting
better. I with my seventy-four years of age will likely not see
better days again. France wants to ruin Germany and is so bold
that no other land dares to oppose it or to help us; and yet is will
hurt all civilised countries, if France should gain its goal.
The conditions on the Rhine and Ruhr are worse than you read about.
I wonder if ever there will be peace again. I thank thee again
and with best regards to all, I am,
Sincerely your Cousin,
C. Gauss.
(From Carl Gauss to William
T. Gauss, Colorado Springs)
Hameln, Germany
20 August 1923
Liebe Cousin:
Please pardon me that I waited
some days to answer your letter; I was obliged to be away for a few
weeks and returned home only yesterday. I wish to thank you for
all your trouble for me, and for the thirty dollars which you and your
sister Mary and Cousins Virginia and Eugene and your brother Joseph
sent to me. Everything arrived safely and I wish to thank the
last-mentioned also. all of you have been a great help to me in
these hard times which rest upon us, and in which I would not know how
to make out is it were not that for the second time you have helped
me. In the last months our condition has again grown worse, prices
are going up from day to day, and there is no hope that things can get
any better for some time. If I were young I would do as so many
are doing, I would leave the country, as much as I love my country,
because we are going towards our ruin, if France has its way.
How can we pay the fabulous and incredible sums of money which are asked
of us? So much the more as, through France occupying the Ruhr
and Rhine, the work of our industries is almost made impossible.
What the conditions really are, people outside do not know. Hate
rules, and rough force torments the people to the utmost; unless the
mighty nations of the world have sympathy to see that we do not perish.
Helen wrote that your wife
was sick; I hope she is well again, so that you may live long together
still; this is the happiest fortune for married persons.
My son Carl is in Wurzburg
and is well. He has much work and in Germany is counted as an
authority in X-ray treatment. He may yet become a great man.
The newspaper clipping with his picture I send along.
Good-bye and Godspeed.
Many thanks and regards to your wife and all relatives.
C. Gauss
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