10/21/09

Another one I did was that of a woman by the name of Erna Polle. She was a woman from Conneticut and also a writer judging by the things found in the collection which included a short story and something else, which I'll discuss.

Basically Erna was German and in the novel/account (it's called Lucia - Tales from the Spain I knew and Loved), she writes about how there's a Spanish word, salida, and how they need a dictionary to translate it into German because they don't speak Spanish. It shows how much diversity could be found abroad in Spain, which is a point proven many times over by the demographical lists of people who went over including Polish people, Germans, and etc.

Anyways there's a folder within for correspondences between her and other people. Oddly enough it's not one between her lovers or anything but rather her petitioning to big companies or to Professors to donate some money to the cause in Spain. For example in one she writes to a Professor at Mit, Professor Spruik, asking if he could donate money. Another one is to the Coordinating COmmunist to aid anti-facism group in Spain asking if they could donate AND put in 10cents to cover the costs of the letter! (Kind of stingy..hahah). That I thought was classic. Moreover she writes to a magazine editor to ask if they have a copy of the Spanish Constitution although it does not ask why she wants it.

Then she has a collection of pamphlets that lead me to believe that she was quite religious because all of the pamphlets are about spreading the word of god, such as the Spanish Gospel Mission, abroad in Spain. The sad part is that at the end of all these pamphlets, theres some derivative of "Pray for Spain".

One other man she writes to quite often is that of Felix Marti-Ibanez who is the editor in chief of Medical Newsmagazine. This man wrote many articles about Spain but in a literary kind of sense. For example, he compares Don Quixote to some of the people in the Spanish war. They write because she wants his articles.

In the end, there's a folder of letters from publishers that reject her "children's book" (what I mentioned earlier) because "the publisher do not want to take the risk in publishing about Spain". There are probably 15 of these letters and it's the saddest thing because it shows how the US and even the media through books, did not want to get involved.

This was a great folder because it showed the depths of writers and petitioners and religion all in one box. However the thing that impacted me most was probably her efforts to secure money from a variety sources and the rejection letters.