painful to realize the situation as it really is and to see the deep fear the
human being has of his own possibilities.
Summerhill School
Festiniog, North Wales
My dear Reich,
- • •
February 23, 1943Your letter came and today NO. 3 Journal which I have read
with great pleasure. I shall sell the journals and books that Constance
doesn't need for the library. So far, I have not done this because the
buyers would almost certainly be the wrong people ... partly the
rubber-necks who always seek what is new and forget it at once. But it
is the only way. I think I can get permission to send out the proceeds of
sales. The money I gave you when you emigrated before the war was a
gift towards your cancer research.
Do not be annoyed at my not making an Accumulator, for you have
no idea of the position here. Food we have enough of, and clothing,
but one can't buy wood or metal without a government permit. I have
tried for months-in vain-to get wood for necessary repairs and for
the children's woodwork classes. I can't buy a short rod of brass and
sheet metal cannot be obtained unless one is helping the war effort.
Again, you have no idea of the housing question. We are 100 people in a
house built for 20. Children even sleep in passages sometimes. The staff
has no staffroom. Domestic servants are called up for the �rmy or
munitions, and we all have to work. I spend much of my day mending
windows, stoking furnaces, sifting cinders, gardening, and no longer
can give nearly as much time as I should give to the children. Luckily,
they are all normal now. I tell you, Reich, that I should welcome an
Accumulator where I might retire for health and peace for a bit daily.
I have had to send my wife away to a Mental Home, and that is not
a pleasant duty. And within two days I have news of deaths of old boys
[former pupils], one of them Elsa Backer's boy killed flying in Canada.
It isn't easy to feel optimistic with all this sorrow around. To see youth
die for the mistakes of all of us is never pleasant. Must the Son always
be crucified?
You took the criticism of the radio man too seriously. He is only