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- Portfolio of Selected Translations -
"Thanks so much for your package, which I was eagerly awaiting. I am particularly pleased with the cap."
All source documents and translation samples are used with permission.
Editing help from Penina Scher, Björn Schultz, Nina Warnke, and others.
Portfolio Collection: Marina Heintze’s family letters
Text: Handwritten letters and postcards from Vienna and Budapest to Washington, DC.
Written in years: 1939-1944
Date of translation: 2023
Marina Heintze writes:
It is a miracle that I discovered my ancestor's letters from 1939-1944 which somehow made it out of Budapest & Vienna to the USA to my nana (who was able to escape and come to America), even though most of my family did not survive. Their written word did. [...] These translated letters are the only connection I have with those who perished! I am extremely grateful that I can learn a little bit more about my family's story and finally hear their voices in pen-to-paper form.
Vienna and Budapest, 1939-1944.
Letters to Lilly Heintze in Washington, DC.
Handwritten German letters:
English translations of the letters above:
Portfolio Item: Valeriu Marcu manuscript translation
Text: Typewritten and manually marked-up manuscript by writer Valeriu Marcu in which he remembers World War I socialist resistance efforts in Zurich, wartime Paris, Leon Trotsky, and Petrograd, Russia, in 1916, writing decades later. 66 pages of excerpts translated for academic research, with editing by translator Penina Scher.
Translated for: Prof. Eugene R. Sheppard, Associate Professor of Modern Jewish History and Thought, Brandeis University
Written in year: ca. 1940
Date of translation: 2022
Manuscript from ca. 1940 by Valeriu Marcu, in German.
Excerpts from typewritten German manuscript:
Excerpts from English translation (corresponding to the German excerpts above):
Portfolio Collection: Joyce Bloom’s family letters
Text: Handwritten letters and postcards between present-day Ukraine, the present-day Czech Republic, and Brooklyn, New York, among other places. Written in German and Germanized Yiddish. Translated in collaboration with Dr. Nina Warnke, Yiddish-English translator.
Written in years: 1915-1923
Date of translation: 2021
In researching her family history and genealogy, Joyce Bloom of New York, NY, uncovered many touching moments and situations from over 100 years ago, when her grandfather, Isak Hellreich/Holreich, moved to Brooklyn from Toky, in present-day Ukraine, and corresponded with his loving sisters and parents back home. Displaced by World War I, the Hellreichs found themselves in Brno in much reduced circumstances, where they scraped a living together from low-paying work and money that Isak sent from Brooklyn. Years later, when they returned to Toky, their home had been destroyed completely.
Despite speaking Yiddish at home, the Hellreichs often had to write to Isak in German during WWI so that the censors would allow their letters through. This meant that Isak’s mother, Hinde, found herself cut off from writing to her son, as she only wrote Yiddish. Elias, Isak’s father, wrote diligently and often wrote the same letter multiple times so that at least one version would get through. Isak’s sisters also wrote letter after letter, expressing their love and the hope that they would be reunited.
Translating letters written in a combination of German and Germanized Yiddish requires extensive assistance from a Yiddish-English translator. Dr. Nina Warnke provided crucial assistance and expertise on this project. On first glance, some German speakers may have mistaken these letters for ‘poorly written’ German, but Yiddish speakers recognize that they are full of ‘correct’ Yiddish. It has been an honor to get to know this family a century later through their letters.
Present-day Ukraine and Czech Republic, 1915.
Letters to Isak Hellreich in Brooklyn, NY.
Handwritten German/Germanized Yiddish letters: