|
Correspondence from Karl Germer to Gerald Yorke
[EXTRACT]
28 December 1931
Dear Yorke,
I am sorry we have not heard from you since you left us. Cora [Cora Germer] especially had expected a formal letter which you had promised to send her as soon as you had returned to London. I think it would be only fair and decent to send it. She has done more for the Great Work than anyone else for a long time, which should be all the more acknowledged considering her age and the conditions under which the money was obtained.
However, I am writing to you today not only for that reason, though I had intended to do this for quite some time. We had been under the impression that you were going to bear the responsibilities for A.C.'s financial support. This point was very clearly and definitely understood at the last conversations. What happened after you left was that A.C. turned up at our flat again, half-starved, sick and all the rest. So there was really nothing left for us but to shoulder the responsibilities again, though we had almost nothing left ourselves. Cora has gone to Leipzig to live with my father and sister, but believe me, she suffers terribly under the exile and the feeling of living on charity. I have gone to a cheap board in Potsdam where I am near Berlin and can look around. I have paid A.C.'s rent to Dec. 31 and have given him a regular sum every week until now. Tomorrow will be the last payment that I can make. What will happen then I don't know. Nothing of his plans [to earn money] has materialized or looks like coming off. Times are too critical just now here and are getting worse.
I must again, and this time more urgently, call upon you to come forward and make a serious effort. For various reasons I have the conviction that after April 1, 1932 things will look up for me once again after the many years of downward trend, and that I will start on another upward curve. All I ask of you is to make an effort to get us over these next three months. What A.C. needs as a minimum is about 600 Marks. I am trying to manage with half that sum with Cora. If you could put up that amount, or in a round sum to leave a little more freedom as the above figures are very narrow, 1,000 Marks per month for the next three months I feel fairly safe in saying that we shall get over this present crisis.
|