Middle of letter from Meish Rubin

To send it in wartime [i], it would cost too much. I believe we will have to manage without it. I have nothing more to write. I can inform you that I received a letter from Sheiken from Slobodka [ii], in answer to the money that he received from me. So it seems the money has arrived – so why are you telling me that he always complains that he does not get any money? I am far away – I sit next to a white paper and a pen and I send away by post – and so we get a letter – otherwise it’s very difficult to retrieve my words until one can communicate, it takes about two months, and after all that you see that it is nothing. So I have written a lot of letters to Slobodoka. I’m getting sent in some goods from people in the country. It is already late at night. It is about the second hour after midnight. Tuvye is snoring in his sleep so I must also go to sleep. Keep well and be happy as is the wish of your faithful husband, Meish Rubin. I also greet my mother-in-law, Rose Breina, I greet also the whole of Kolden, may they all live well and in comfort forever and ever.

Notes:

[i] Soon after Tuvye arrived in Cape Town, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State issued an ultimatum to Britain and two days later, on 11 October 1899, Britain officially declared war on the two Boer republics.

[ii] Slobodka (Vilijampole), is a village now in north-eastern Poland, close to the border with Lithuania. In 1941 Einsatzgruppe A carried out a pogrom in which 800 Jews were killed. The Slobodka ghetto contained 29,760 people. Most were killed at the Ninth Fort near Slobodka.