Dear Marion,

Thank you very! much for your letters. I feel, with respect to
our families and their conflicts, as if I had been living in a
basement without light or air. Your letters, as if shattering a
shuttered window, have now let in both.

I contradict myself, when I write in one letter, that one cannot
unravel the past, and in the next letter, I presume to do just
that. I acknowledge the contradiction. I can't escape it, I can't
help it.

The absence of "die grosse Linie" from your parents' ideology
so far as I am concerned, finally provides a solution to the
enigmas of a relationship which I like to contemplate as similar
to an algebraic or logical equation. Here's how I see it:

1. From 1927, when Heinz married Marga, until 1936, the bond
between Fritz and the Marga-Heinz family was so strong that
Fritz was considered by both parties part of that family.

2. In 1936, when Fritz married Margot, Fritz's bond to the 
Marga-Heinz family had, of necessity, to be broken. There
then became apparent intense hostility between the two
sisters-in-law. That hostility, it now appears, was erroneously
interpreted by my parents, - and possibly by your parents -
as consequence of religious differences. It cannot, so far as
Fritz is concerned, have been a consequence of my father's
"conversion" because the status of my father's religious
conscience in 1936, or for that matter, in 1938, was no
different from what it was in the years subsequent to 1927
when Fritz was part of the Marga-Heinz family.

3. It's irrational to infer that the effect of my father's
"conversion" in 1939, had a retroactive effect and was 
responsible for the family rupture in 1936. Fritz's revulsion
against my father's "conversion" in 1939 which you have
described so eloquently:

_     "My father, with his fierce, unbendable loyalties
_      and commitments, could not get over your father's
_      conversion from Judaism,"
_     "He considered it (Heinz's conversion) an offense
_      to their parents."

cannot explain the crises in their relationship in 1936
and 1938, because that "conversion" did not take place until
1939. Thereafter, if anything, the relationship improved.

4. My conclusion: religion is a "red herring" that has
nothing to do with the family schism. The sole cause was my
mother's personality, her "domineering", the matriarchal
role in the family that she filled subsequent to our 
grandmother's death until 1936. Had my mother been Erika
everything would have been hunky-dory. This insight, for
which I am very grateful to you, is uniquely valuable to
me, because I observe in myself so many of my mother's
characteristics, that in some respects the story of my
life is the mirror image of hers.

I found a few more Kodachrome scans that I can send you.
I should explain, that because the telephone-modem
transmission from Konnarock is so slow, I have been
reducing the pixel density of the images, with some
impairment of quality. It it were important to you
to have the originals, I could easily send these from
Belmont where we have a broadband connection.

Even though, at least to my mind, the mysteries of the
Roessner-Bauman, - or Bauman-Roessner feud have been
unraveled, I hope we can continue our correspondence,
although off the top of my head, I have nothing more
to relate about Onkel Fritz and Tante Margot. 
For my part, although I am not inquisitive, I would
read any account of your life beyond 1781 Riverside Drive,
with the devotion that I accord to all writing, das,
in Goethes Worten, "von Herzen geht."

As for myself, there is in my life, so much going on,
and in the course of that long life so much has gone on, 
and I am so loquacious, that if you ask for them, you
are at risk for receiving letters that are too frequent
and too long, rather than too sparse and too short.

Attached is an image that tells a story about Margot
and Klemens.

Jochen