Letter from Olda and Oskar Kokoschka to J.P. Hodin

Description

[Translation/transcription]

Villeneuve

Dear Pamela and Pepik,

You are all very photogenic and we are very impressed. We are supposed to go to New York in the beginning of October, unfortunately without stopping at London. OK has been working in Berlin, returned satisfied but very tired. Have a nice holiday and let us hope that we can turn up in London in November perhaps?

Kind regards from us both

Yours

Olda


My beloved beautyful one and my Magister Hodinus

I painted Red Berlin from the roof of the Springer Verlag house, 27 floors high, one meter from the infamous Wall where daily young people try to escape trough mine-fields, high-tension wire and barbed wire, savage dogs and more savage gardiens of the Red Paradise and 200 had allready been killed. But the whole world is doing a flourishing business with these cannibals. I just returned and may sleep in my own bed for 2 weeks afterwards we fly to New-York possibly till end of November, returning before snow-fall. It was a tragic experience to look at Berlin, where I spent my early youth from my windy, icecold roof, the most lively town before the first ware, calcinated by the allies and now occupied by the most vicious armee-corps, hiding in the barracks for the assault, looks like a moon-scape, not a single human being visible. I kiss you both, the beautyfull one is enchanting, allways in love, yours OK

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