Letter from Harry Massey to Barbara Massey

Letter No. 100. Monday, Feb 23rd Major. J.H. Massey 6 Palestinian Coy, The Badds. M.E.T. My own darling Barbara, And now having arrived at number one hundred, I will go back to number one. I hope with all my heart that by the time I reach number four or five again, I shall be able to pack up my writing materials & everything else too, & post myself home to you. Do you know I have written 958 pages in my 99 letters, & So with the L.Cs not included in this number & all the () that is over 1000 pages. And I suspect that you have written somewhere about the same amount. It is an amazing amount really. I find that when I am really trying, I can just about manage four pages in an hour. But my normal rate is certainy less than 2 pages an hour. So you can imagine how much time I have spent sitting at my table & writing to you thinking about you. And I like doing so, thank goodness. In fact it is the only real way I have of enjoying myself, & feeling more or less happy somehow together with you. I posted a 16 page letter to you yesterday & now here I am beginning again. It was sweet of you to assure me again in your last letter, that you find my letters good & interesing, & loving too. I do like to know this, I hope that they are more or less like me, for better or worse, give you a fine picture of what I am or what I am doing, thinking. I hardly think that there is any need for me to reassure you, my darling. I told you in a fairly recent letter that I am quite certain that your letters to me are the most wonderful letters which anybody could possible receive. They are perfect in every way & I love them & never cease to look forward to them. It will be an extraordinary feeling when I do not

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write to you any more. If I do come home this time, I shall have a 4-8 weeks voyage, & no writing to do at all. I shall be able to do a tremendous amount of good reading.

Today, darling, for the first time for months & weeks I am suffering from hang over. Last night, we celebrated Ben's promotion, by he & his wife & I going to P.Os for dinner. P[?] himself is an extraordinary little man - he was a Communist & was imprisoned for his activities - & now he owns the most expensive restaurant in Tel Aviv, & is supposed to be making L5-600 a week profit. As a Jew, & an old friend of Ben's, he was delighted at the promotion, & the party was on him. Don't be too jealous, darling, - but we had dry Martinis, made from his special private stock of Garden Gin & [?] [?], beer with the food, & lots of champagne afterwards - & when the evening finished at 11[?], we had some lovely sandwiches, & three very quick vodkas. I enjoyed it, as much as I can enjoy anything without you being there too. - [Pity?] promised to buy champagne again, the first time you enter his place with me. If only you could - or soon.

Today, I have been in Tel-Aviv again, in connection with our [?]. And I went to see Pinocchio - have you seen it. It really is awfully good, & Walt Disney is so incredibly orginal - it is all the clever little touches which make his cartoons, & there were hundreds of chidlren there - it was this afternoon & of course I could not help thinking how Lisa would have loved it & been thrilled about it. I do miss our darling so much - we always shall

3/ do all my lives. I'm going to bed now, my sweetheart. XXX H X Saturday Feb 28th And Marie is nine months old today. Dear little chappie. how I long to see him. For four days now I have not written a word to you + that must be just about the longest time since I have been away from you. I have been very busy - working right up to dinner time every day + then some more afterwards. But I'm afraid I have been having a dreadful bit of depression + misery + I just could not bring myself to write to you darling. I don't really know why this fit came- no very particular reason really. But I expect you understand well enough - they just arrive + there you are. And though they never really go away at all they do ease off for varying lengths of time, until the curtain comes down again. I don't really feel like writing now but I am hoping to write myself into a more reasonable frame of mind. News first- + there is little enough about which to tell you. I sent you another "useful" parcel the other day. Another 2 lbs of jam - 100 cigarettes- + 4 pieces of toilet soap + 2 packets of soap flakes. I heard on the wireless that soap is now rationed in England; - + also the photographs from Feb 6th, they are rather disappointing, I'm afraid- none of them are much good of use- there are no good ones at all of the parade+ the remainder are of the men + their friends. The latter I can tell you more about when I came home- but perhaps you will find them interesting as showing types.

4/ One evening I went to the cinema + saw a perfectly awful film with Joan Crawford + James Stewart - I could not stick it + left in the middle l that girl is quite unbearable- does she really believe herself to be an actress? Since Wednesday, things have been very much overshadowed by the loss of the ship "St Inna" with over 700 lives- + it has had a very deep affect on me too. I wander has this been in the English papers. All the people on board were Rumanian Jews- men, women + children who had escaped from the horror of Rumania by the only route open to them- across the Black Sea. They left about 6 - 7 months ago + they were making for Palestine- about 760 people on a small ship which would have been overcrowded with 200. The ship sprung a leak. + they put in at a Turkish port where some mechanical help was given to them + some food. meanwhile the Palestine Government which is all British, refused them persmission to enter Palestine. And so for weeks + months that ship has been hanging about the Dardanelles. with disease on board + several people even went mad. The Jewish Agency made strenuous efforts all the time + finally after weeks of arguments + deliberations + procrastinations the Govt agreed to allow the children only to be taken off. But before this could be effected, the ship sunk, + over 700 people were drowned. It makes me shudder- + feel very angry too-

5/ to think of it; those months of ghastly misery + suffering + then a violent death - after having escaped from the Nazis. The Jewish Agency offered to count them against the quota which had been agreed for the years immigration - but the Govt dillied + dallied + talked about the possibility of 5th column + the difficulty of leading them. The first could have been answered by internment until they had been proved or vouched for + the extra trouble involved is nothing when compared with the simple humanitarian aspect. And as to feeding them there is a shortage of labour + soldiers in this country- + most officers messes are living on the fat of the land at 4 + 5 a day above + over rations. The main reason as I believe it to be is a fear probably unfounded that the Arabs would be upset at so many more Jews coming into the country. But even more than that, I believe the reason to be just plain uselessness + inability to make a decision. And that is the reason why I feel so sick + dejected + ashamed about it. Had it been unavoidable I could just make it up as one more crime of the Nazis - but when the poor people are well in a few days sailing of what we acknowledge to be their National Home + they have nowhere else to go to- it is criminal that someone had