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Dvr H.Adler
PAL/30775
650, G.T.Coy R.A.S.C
“B”Platoon  

June

My sweet little darling,

This week in Tel Aviv I saw Dov. More than two weeks ago I heard about his discharge from the army but it’s only now that I had the occasion to believe it. We had a long chat. Until three o’clock in the morning, sitting in Pepi’s room, discussing, gossiping, telling stories. It was moving. It was good. For him too. His health is perfect; he looks marvellous.  Physically.  His morale is rather foggier. And this is quite understandable. His discharge was a result of the dirty tricks of those who, under cover of nationalist (?) ideology (!) shamefully betray the true interests of the Jewish people in this war against their most atrocious, bestial enemy, the most determined to exterminate them totally and it has upset him. And how could it not?  Has it not taken away, arbitrarily, from a man his right to fight for his dignity? That can shake the morale most strongly. And that is what has happened to him. The same man who, formerly, played me a similar dirty trick, the cause of it. This man is not simply a man. He is the quintessential representative of a certain ideology… And if I call it an ideology, I am rather elevating it.

On top of that, the passage from the military to the civilian life is always pretty tough. You always need time to adapt again to a more or less normal life, more or less human.  And then he found his friends, you know, so confused, that he, young as he is, is quite disgusted with them.

On this matter, darling, allow me to say to you also, not to let yourself be disgusted for that never fails to give birth to scepticism and even to cynical irony, which, deep down, is uncalled for and which invariably destroys all that is the most good in man.

I can’t tell you not to be disgusted, since the fact is that you are, that I am, that so many worth while people are. Happily. For that gives confidence.

But the disgust that I feel only increases still more my ideal. It must do the same for you. It must, darling. And that is the only true solution. You don’t know yet what I tell you now: there are things that happen everywhere there are men. Now, we are men and don’t want to escape from humanity. We love humanity, just as it is, with its strength and its weakness, with its beauty and its ugliness. For we well know that deep down it is the strength and beauty which are its essence and that at the end of the day is the strength and beauty which triumph and which will one day triumph more gloriously and totally than ever.

Oh darling, darling, my adored little Yvette!    I broke off for a few minutes to roll a cigarette and go over this letter- Yes, Yvette, I clearly verify that it is my wonderful love for you that speaks through my mouth.  It is the purity of your heart, it is the freshness and the beauty of your soul, and it is your sublime love for me, which purifies me and makes me say those good things that I said to you earlier on.

But our love is true. So true, my God!  So, my faith in humanity is also right, is also true.

But, to return to Dov. As a driver he makes 58p a day. That’s shameful. He has difficulties about the room but I am doing something about it and I hope to fix it up. That will be all for the moment concerning our friend Dov. (He always calls me – the man- poor chap!)[…]

I love you and I am always with you.  I sit up with you at night. I hold your arm when you glide among the sick, the Phoenix and the others.  I look at the star when you look at it. My heart beats in unison with yours when it feels wounded France restored so painfully and unhappily from its wounds.  You know well, darling that the night will end. You have written so well about the joyous sunrise after a night of suffering. France also will know its sunrise. And that sun will not only rise for the generals. It will rise for all the French people. […]

I embrace you tenderly

Your Henry