New York, May 5, 1938
Dear Puppiken, I received your letter dated April 20 on May 5. You have received my first letter from here by now, and you will know why I did not write you again from Ireland. Please tell Mr. Uhlig and Mr. Rosenstengel that my departure was so sudden that I actually forgot to say goodbye to them, and I am sorry about that. You can also tell Mr. R. that that I did not have a suit to give away, but that I took all of them with me. The nib of your new fountain pen writes very nicely. Please call the Bergmanns and give them my address. Give them my regards and tell them that it looks very suspicious(?) here. I am convinced that Ruth will bombard me with letters. Tell her to possibly write them in a way that I can show them to Leibholz. - You can tell from the address that I am living with Walter Stern. I like it that way because he knows his way around and it is inexpensive. I have a small, humbly furnished room for which I pay $5.00 a week including breakfast. So, at this rate, I can easily get by on $15.00 a week, at least as far as I can tell so far. You spend a lot of money on transportation here. A ride costs 5 cents, that is one 20th of a dollar. That sounds cheap, and for Americans, it is not much.
But for immigrants, it is a lot. You can figure that you can buy as much for 1 dollar here as you can for 2 marks in Germany. On this basis, there are many everyday items that are cheaper but there are also many that are more expensive so that all in all, the ratio of 1:2 is accurate. Regarding your planned job training, I don’t want to write anything about that until next week because I am still too new here. You hear so much and you have to compare opportunities first. I will be going to a government office for the so-called first papers. As soon as I have received those and have found employment, I will be able to issue the affidavit for you. He will understand that I cannot say anything final about this after having been in the country for only one week. But I think I can assure you that you will be able to be here in the fall unless your job training were to delay your departure. I was happy to hear that you attend the Berlitz school 3 times a week. That is the only advice I can give you 100% today. Learn English and keep learning English. I hope you have the opportunity to speak at the Berlitz School. Don’t be afraid to make a mistake. Just have fun talking.
You will only learn by making mistakes. It is very important that your English skills are good. Everybody tells me here that I speak well and that they did not speak as well when they arrived. However, I think I am not very good yet. I don’t understand a lot of what people are talking about. Until you get here, I should be able to. So don’t be shy, and keep learning. Don’t let a minute pass by without taking advantage. And don’t be stingy when it comes to purchasing reading material that will help you learn everyday spoken language. You don’t need to buy dictionaries. I have enough of those. Don’t buy any linen or other items. They will only weigh you down. You have enough of everything.
I am not quite sure yet what I will start doing. From over there, everything looks easier and completely different than it actually is. Please give my regards to Mr. Gartenling(?). Tell him not to be impatient. When you call on somebody, it takes 1/2 day, and if you are lucky enough that the person is not in, it might take you another 1/2 day.
I will close for today; give my regards to [your] parents, and please thank Mother for her letter.
Give my regards to Gisela and Joachim, 1000 kisses for you
Your Fritz
