“Dear friend, thank you and the other chawerim for the trouble that you have with my Aliyah. Do trust me, that I am in such mental state that my heart is about to break. One of the past days I received the enclosed letter from Switzerland, in which a relative gave me news of my daughter’s illness. A few hours after having received the news, I thought I would go insane with worry and heart ache. Is it possible that the poor child spent nine months bed-ridden, severely ill and clearly no one looked after her? Perhaps she was also in material need? I can image the despair Lici felt, and how, given her high sensibility and soft-heartedness, she had to suffer unspeakably by feeling alone and abandoned. And, on top of it, the disaster with her illness. I ask you most urgently, dear Wenia, do tell me everything openly. Especially how the child is doing, what was done to help her treatment, whether she needs operation and whether there are any chances for her recovery.
I know, (…) that you haven’t still told me how things really are (...) to spare me, because you knew that this heavy concern about the wellbeing of my beloved child would keep me so preoccupied that it would be immensely difficult for me to focus on the other major tasks. Plus, there is yet my other great misfortune: my poor, kind, beloved mother with whom I live, is also seriously ill. Fate thus throws me here and there, like a ball between my duties of a child to a mother, and those of a mother to a child. On the other side of those major worries is also the utmost sense of responsibility for the klal (community), as the yehudim of our community mustn’t suffer because of my personal problems. We are just a handful of those who, in these trying times, have the ability and strength to work. That made me decide against my Aliyah . . (…)
Even though I was already getting prepared for Aliyah, I want to serve my community for as long as I have the strength, as I believe that I can say that my work is indispensable …!”
From a letter to Wenia Pomeranc–Hadari, 5 January 1944