How few of those, expelled like us to the ghetto,
remained true to themselves?
How few of those around us are not envious and hostile,
would not sell themselves and others?
How ** few are purified for a better future
by this massive suffering?

If you were not one the few
I would not trouble myself to write to you.
Which proves that I always think of your birthday
even though I have no present for you.
For sheet pleasure in the child of man
which, hardly changed, I find again.

Therefore, my first wish is
that you may remain as you are,
true to yourself – in the future –
untouched by hardship and hatred,
childlike put in the midst of all the dirt,
surrounded by the light of love.

and since I know your pain I wish for you
that you may be surrounded by your loved ones
Look! The day of freedom is dawning
and you will see its sunshine again.

And then, when the new life begins,
may fate give you all the pleasures
which my third wish contains
because it grows out of knowing you.
If this wish becomes reality
you will soon be perfectly happy.

-Unknown author, copied from Lotte’s translation

Anniversary Card, 1943

The year that just passed was difficult
but – for you – never without love
and therefore never without light.
Do not forget this.

May the full circle of your coming years
increase the flow of this light
in shiny colourful beauty of flowers.
This is my wish for you today.

And if you complain that due to fate
your life’s *** fields which promised
such rich harvest could not be tilled
and now lay fallow,

My wish for you is this: may this time
of fallow fields give you double
and triple harvest in later,
fertile days.

-Unknown author, copied from Lotte’s translation