Abstract
Edited by Dr Peter Barton in collaboration with Dr August Obermayer. Transcription of a German manuscript held by the Hocken Collections with a translation into English. Contains extensive introduction and annotations. Dunedin 2023.
The following text is a transcription and annotated German-English translation of the second of three journals of letters and diary entries held in the Hocken Collections (Dunedin, New Zealand) as part of the Kennedy Family: Bielschowsky Papers (MS1493).
With the consent of the Hocken Library the editors have decided to present the manuscript in two parts: as a transcription and annotated translation. We felt the transcription using a standardised Latin alphabet to be necessary because the text was written in an old German script (deutsche Schrift or Kurrentschrift) which fewer and fewer native speakers of German are now able to decipher. The translation, of course, opens up the text to anyone unable to read German. All translations into English from German and Spanish sources in the footnotes are by the main editor (P.B.).
Detailed annotations and an introduction have been added to provide background on the lives of Marianne Angermann and her mother, and to give historical context to the events they experienced. We have been as comprehensive as possible in our footnotes in the belief that, while the language of this journal and the events it describes may currently be transparent to the older reader, they will almost certainly require explanation in the not so distant future. This task has been timeconsuming: both the introduction and the annotations set out in the letters have required extensive research in German and Spanish language sources.