<persName ref="http://d-nb.info/gnd/120589397">Mary Antin's</persName> Letter to her Uncle <persName ref="nognd">Moshe Hayyim Weltman</persName>, <date when="1894">1894</date> [Extract] Institute for the History of the German Jewsredaktion@juedische-geschichte-online.net
Beim Schlump 83, 20144 Hamburg

Original Source: Boston Public Library, MS Am. 178, S. 26-29 Transcription and translation: Sunny Yudkoff, Transcription of Mary Antin’s Yiddish Letter (Precursor to From Plotzk to Boston), in: Studies in American Jewish Literature, 32 (2013) 1, pp. 67-98; ibid: “Translation of Mary Antin’s Yiddish Letter (Precursor to From Plotzk to Boston),” in: Studies in American Jewish Literature, 32 (2013) 1, 36-66 © 2013 by The Pennsylvania State University Press. Reprinted by permission of The Pennsylvania State University Press. Transcription (Latin script): Monica Rüthers, 2015, based on: Sunny Yudkoff, “Transcription of Mary Antin’s Yiddish Letter (Precursor to From Plotzk to Boston),” in: Studies in American Jewish Literature, 32 (2013) 1, pp. 67-98.

jgo:source-47 Auszug aus Mary Antin: Brief an den Onkel Moshe Hayyim Weltman, 1894jgo:article-53Mary AntinBoston1894Boston Public Library EnglishSource:Textyid

No one expected the bath or the doctor or all of the unnecessary formalities. But every order had to be obeyed, for we were in some type of prison: We all remained standing in the yard, but now women were standing in one group and men in another. 2 of the women clad in white approached the group of women and showed them to the baths, where they too entered.

The bath consisted of 2 rooms. In the first room were 2 benches. To one side was a large kettle of boiling water on an iron stove. In the 2nd room were 4 showers set into the ceiling. There was no floor here but an iron grate.

As we entered the first room, the two women ordered us to take off our clothes and then ordered us frequently: “Quickly! Quickly!”

They took everyone’s clothes and placed them together in sacks and carried them to be disinfected.

They ordered us to go into the 2nd room. We placed ourselves under the showers. The women gave everyone green soap and ordered us to wash our necks and ears. And when we were sufficiently soapy, they turned on the 2 showers, and we were all doused, as if in a summer rain.

Then we went back into the first room and we wrapped ourselves in large flannel blankets and had to sit on the benches.

5 minutes later, the doctor came in and looked at every-one’s neck and ears, and without saying anything or asking anything, he left.

Soon they brought the sacks with our clothes. When they put them down, the room grew dark from the steam. “Now get dressed and quickly!” the women ordered.

Each of us began to pick out his clothes and dress hurriedly. And before everyone was completely dressed, the 2 women pushed everyone through the narrow door, saying:

“Your bags are in the yard, just as you left them. Take them and go as quickly as possible into the waiting room.

We entered a train car with all the other passengers traveling to Hamburg. There were also two Jews who were traveling to London. When all the passengers had settled down and fallen asleep, I looked around and listened, and I began to recall everything we had suffered through that evening. And I shuddered at the memory of how everyone had been treated (in the bath):

The harsh faces of all the people whom we had seen in the Berlin baths – or better said, prison – with their white clothes. They made a terrible impression on everyone. Their orders, their rushing and yelling made everyone shudder. I don’t believe that a bath like that would have been built or a doctor present because of a fear that a person would transmit disease to America. How could their water and green soap protect against disease? I can’t help thinking that it was just a way to trick passengers in order to rob them.