Some editorial notes: credits and translation

On occasion, I will step in as blog publisher to add some editorial notes to the writings of Clara Lewin, my great-grandmother.


Acknowledgements.  First, I should like to credit and thank by name the German team whose work has made it possible for new generations of Clara's family and others to come to know more of our ancestors.  Astrid Lohöfer, the team's coordinator, Dr. Jürgen Lorenz, and Erika Laribi have given generously of their time and thought in making the transcriptions and adding useful footnotes, and we of the Sachs-Lewin-Feiler family are grateful to them. Ms. Lohöfer also introduced me to Dropbox, which has made it possible to conveniently share the letters and transcriptions via this blog.


Written clearly in an elegant but archaic script, unreadable even for most Germans, Clara's letters have opened or reopened a window for many of us into the lives of our family during the generally dreadful decade of the 1930s.  It's testament to the vitality of her letters that Clara has come alive not only to us, her descendants, but also to members of the transcription team, who have told me how Clara and her family have grown upon them.  We hope that other readers will discover this blog and its story of how one German-Jewish extended family dealt with Europe's descent into war and beginnings of genocide in the 1930s.


Thanks too to my brother, Daniel, who has been an invaluable fact checker regarding family history.  His published autobiography ("Through Turmoil to Tranquility") includes a detailed family history with many photos, but it's out of print.  A second edition in paperback is in progress.  I'll let you know when it appears.


Daniel has also updated the family genealogy, which I will publish here soon to help Clara's readers understand who's who.


Translation.  Until it's possible for me or others to make better translations of Clara's letters, I'll be using Google Translate, currently the best of bad alternatives.  Yes, GT often renders German-English translations that are utterly unintelligible, but other software options are usually worse.  


Consider just the translation of Grossmama, as Clara usually signed her letters to her grandson, George, and his wife, Leonie, who were our parents.


In the context of a letter, Google renders this word acceptably  as Grandmother.
Babylon leaves the word untranslated: Großmama, which is OK.
Free Translation translates it literally and humorously:  Large mama.
Babelfish renders it humorously (and ambiguously):  Large mummy.
Webtranslation is fine with that word: Grandma; but otherwise clumsy to use and as unintelligible as Google Translate.


For the present, I'll stay with Google Translate, but if you know of better translation software, please let me know.  Better yet, if you're bilingual and are willing to improve on the translations, please do so and send them to me.  We more-or-less monolingual English speakers will be grateful.  Let me know too if I may credit you with the translation.


Auf Wiederschreiben,
BDS