Dolf wrote seventeen days after the November pogrom and four days after his relative Fritz Reichenbach was killed at Buchenwald. His appeal to leave Germany was not abstract. By then, violence, arrest and dispossession had made the danger unmistakable.
Before the letter
The violence had made departure imperative.
On the night of 9–10 November 1938, Nazi leaders directed a state-sponsored assault on Jewish life across Germany and its annexed territories. The pogrom made brutally plain that exclusion by law had become organized mass terror.
In Halberstadt, the Baroque synagogue that had stood since 1712 was desecrated. On 18 November, the city ordered its demolition; dismantling began the following day, at the Jewish community’s expense. Within the Reichenbach family, Fritz had been arrested at Wernigerode on 10 November and taken to Buchenwald. He was killed there on 22 November.
Historical context: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum · Jüdisches Halberstadt memorial record
Dolf does not deny the loss. “We’re giving a lot up,” he writes. But he insists that life beyond Germany, even without money, could still hold dignity.
This is not a public declaration and not a polished manifesto. It is a son trying to move his mother across the distance between fear and reunion. Its repeated imperative—Kopf hoch, translated here as “Hold your head high”—makes the letter both tender and urgent.
Hear the letter
Read in German
Listen to the German text while the on-screen captions follow the reading.
Drücken Sie auf Wiedergabe, um die deutsche Lesung zu beginnen.
Press play to follow the English translation line by line.
Translation by Rabbi Dr. Esther Jilovsky.לחצו על ההפעלה כדי לעקוב אחר התרגום לעברית שורה אחר שורה.
Hebrew translation supplied to the Reichenbach Family Archive, 8 August 2026.AI recreation using a contemporary voice. Not a historical recording.
The surviving text
Two sheets, one appeal
Geliebte Mutti,
dieses sind nun die letzten Zeilen, die ich an Dich sende, bevor wir wieder ganz zusammen sind. Lasse Dir den Fortgang nicht schwer fallen. Es ist draussen auch schön ohne Geld, man ist wieder Mensch, bedenke das immer. Deine Kinder haben Dich so lieb, dass es für Dich ein 1000 Mal besseres Leben mit uns sein wird.
Wir geben viel auf und lassen noch mehr an traurigen und schönen Erinnerungen zurück. Für uns bleibt es nun vorwärts-sehen. Wir wollen es schaffen und werden es schaffen. Der liebe Gott wird uns nicht verlassen. Grüsse und küsse alle Verwandten nochmals recht fest von mir. Kopf hoch, nicht weinen, immer daran denken, dass es uns vergönnt sein wird zusammen zu bleiben, davon soll uns nichts abhalten. Nun auf Wiedersehen und Küssen.
Dein Dich innig liebender Sohn Dolf.
St Moritz, 26/11/38
Carlton Hotel
E. Scherz, Dir.
Dear Mum,
These are now the last lines that I’m sending to you before we’re all together once more. Don’t let the progress be too hard for you. It’s also nice outside without money, one is a person again, always keep that in mind. Your children love you so much, that it will be a thousand times better life for you with us.
We’re giving a lot up and leaving more and more sad and nice memories behind. For us that means only looking forward. We want to make it work and will make it work. Dear God will not abandon us. Greetings and kisses yet again from us to all relatives, nice and tight. Hold your head high, do not show, always think that it will be granted for us to stay together, nothing should keep us from that. Well, goodbye and kisses.
Your you-ever-praising,
son Dolf
English translation by Rabbi Dr. Esther Jilovsky.
סנקט מוריץ, 26.11.38
מלון קרלטון
א. שרץ, מנהל
אמא יקרה,
אלה הן כעת השורות האחרונות שאני שולח אלייך בטרם נהיה כולנו יחדיו שוב. אל תניחי להתקדמות להכביד עלייך יתר על המידה. גם בחוץ, בלי כסף, נעים — שוב אתה בן־אדם. זכרי זאת תמיד. ילדייך אוהבים אותך כל כך, עד כי החיים עמנו יהיו טובים לך פי אלף.
אנו מוותרים על הרבה ומשאירים מאחורינו עוד ועוד זכרונות עצובים ונעימים. עבורנו פירוש הדבר הוא רק להביט קדימה. אנו רוצים להצליח — ונצליח. האל הטוב לא יעזבנו. ברכות ונשיקות שוב מאיתנו לכל הקרובים, בחום ובחיבוק הדוק. הרימי ראשך, אל תראי דבר, חשבי תמיד כי יינתן לנו להישאר יחד — דבר לא ימנע זאת מאיתנו. ובכן, שלום ונשיקות.
בנך המשבח אותך תמיד,
דולף
Hebrew translation supplied to the Reichenbach Family Archive, 8 August 2026.
Object: Two handwritten sheets on Carlton Hotel stationery, St. Moritz, retained in family custody.
Date: Read as 26.11.38—26 November 1938.
Text: The transcription was prepared from photographs of the family-held sheets.
Translations: The English translation is by Rabbi Dr. Esther Jilovsky. Hebrew translation supplied to the Reichenbach Family Archive, 8 August 2026.
Presentation: The opening image was prepared with AI assistance for legibility. Photographs of the original sheets appear below.
Original photographed sheets
The surviving letter
The photographed sheets remain beside the presentation copy and are the source for the transcription and translations.