Record of a Friendship

(Ben Green) #1

theories of mechanistic science. I am looking calmly into the future and
hopefully too. There is only one thing I still fear. That is, some crooked
frameup, some abysmal Gemeinheit [dirty trick] which may still hit me
in the back and destroy my work. But we are all alert and watchful.
This time I think the science of living matter, so often frustrated in the
past, is bound to come through.


Summerhill School
Leiston, Suffolk


My dear Reich,



  • ••


July 2, 1946

Am trying to pick up threads in Vienna. Karl Baer, with whom
I founded the Da1croze Schule, had my letter returned marked
Abgereist ohne Adresse [Left without forwarding address]. Poor Baer;
never realised till Erna told me that Baer is a Jewish name.
Your work and mine can be destroyed only if life itself is destroyed
by atomic idiocy. It is incredible that people are talking openly about
an atomic war of east against west. The atomic bomb has arrived a few
hundred years too soon, at a time when an emotionally uneducated
world seems likely to destroy itself. It is an appalling situation.
I advised Barakan to have as much veg.-ther. as he could. I must
tell you that I gave him the Reich letter file to read, a file I kept for the
future to read. I kept out of it any letter I thought personal.
I am so glad you have got your citizenship. Must relieve your mind a
lot. Re our coming over. We'd both like to come when the child is
born. S'hill is like a prison; it is so difficult to get away from it, for I
can never find folks to leave in charge.
Your remarks about the O. Reflex are good. I can never understand
the ageing men who try frantically to recover their potency with nos­
trums and exercises; as you say, the lessening of the sex urge should
be naturally accepted. Such men must have had no other interest in
life.
Tired, awfully tired. Had 40 visitors last night all asking the same
old damn fool questions. I wish I could shut them all out, for the kids
hate them and the staff are weary of them, but I suppose a pioneer
school must pay this publicity price all the time. When I see a stranger
walk into the grounds I feel like murder now. And ten Indians come
this weekend, students. They will be deadly ernst [serious], want to ask

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