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English to Spanish: 50 Children: The Rescue Mission of Mr. and Mrs. Kraus General field: Art/Literary Detailed field: History
Source text - English 50 Children: The Rescue Mission of Mr. and Mrs. Kraus
PHILADELPHIA
JANUARY 1939
Eleanor Kraus glanced around the dining room of her spacious three-story brick home on Cypress Street, in Philadelphia’s well-heeled Fitler Sqaure neighborhood. The diner hour was approaching, and Eleanor wanted to be sure that the table had been set properly. Although her husband, Gil, had not yet arrived home from his downtown law office, Eleanor has already dressed for the evening, choosing a silk dress and a pair of T-strap pumps. A double strand of pearls set off against a new pair of matching earrings and a deep-red coat of lacquered nail polish, completed the look. Carlotta Greenfield, one of Gil’s nieces, was bringing her fiancé to dinner, and Eleanor, as always, wanted everything to shine.
When Gil walked through the front door a few minutes after six o’clock, Eleanor greeted him with a quick kiss on the cheek and reminded him that their guests were due to arrive at any moment. Gil smiled knowingly at his wife, removed his overcoat, and set down his worn leather briefcase. As Eleanor was turning to dash back into the kitchen to check with the family cook on the dinner preparations, Gil caught her eye. “There is something that I need to discuss with you. Come into the bathroom while I shave. We can talk in there and while I’m getting dressed.”
Eleanor followed him upstairs and into the bathroom that adjoined the couple’s bedroom. Gil undid his necktie and pulled off his starched white dress shirt, leaving on a sleeveless undershirt as he prepared to shave. He was forty-two years old, and he and Eleanor had been married for more than fourteen years. But as he stood there in the bathroom, filling the sink with steaming hot water and then carefully scraping the straight edge razor across his face, it struck Eleanor just how fit and handsome he still was. With his broad shoulders and muscular torso, Gil had retained his physique of more than twenty years earlier, when he had competed on both the varsity wrestling and football teams during his undergraduate days at the University of Pennsylvania.
While Eleanor perched on the edge of the bathtub, Gil mentioned that his good friend Louis Levine had dropped by earlier that day. Levine was a successful real estate man in New York, but his visit to Gil’s office had nothing to do with business matters. He had come in his capacity as the grand master of Brith Sholom, a national Jewish fraternal organization to which Gil also belonged.
The two men talked all that afternoon about a seemingly impossible idea –whether there might be a chance to help save Jewish children trapped inside Nazi Germany. Both Gil and Levine were only too aware of the worsening conditions for the Jews living inside Hitler’s Reich, and they discussed the possibility that Brith Sholom might be able to sponsor some kind of rescue effort. Levine reminded Gil that the group had recently built a children’s summer camp along the banks of Perkiomen Creek in Collegeville, a semirural area about an hour outside of Philadelphia. On the other side of the camp, Brith Sholom had also constructed a large stone house that included twenty-five bedrooms. The house, intended for possible use as an old-age home, at the moment was standing completely empty.
Gil had enormous respect for Levine, and he listened closely as his friend spoke passionately about the ever-increasing dangers that were confronting Jews –adults and children alike– living in Nazi Germany. As the afternoon wore on, Levine finally got to the real point of his visit. He knew all about Gil’s reputation as a tough-minded lawyer who seemed able to solve just about any challenge put before him. Levine bluntly asked if Gil himself would be willing to take on the children’s rescue project.
Reacting almost instinctively, Gil surprised himself by immediately agreeing. Of course, he was aware of the difficult –perhaps insurmountable– obstacles that would stand in the way of such a project ever succeeding. Would the Nazis consider letting children leave Germany? And even if they would, America’s rigid immigration laws presented another imposing barrier. But Levine knew his friend well: Gil had a strong sense of justice, of right and wrong, and the rescue idea was right. Coincidentally three prominent Philadelphia Quakers –Rufus Jones, Robert Yarnall, and George Walton, all of whom Gil knew quite well– had traveled on their own to Berlin only a few weeks earlier in an effort to help Jews get out of Germany. Quaker groups in the United States, organized under the banner of the American Friends Service Committee, had become active in a variety of Jewish rescue efforts ever since Hitler had come to power in 1933. The Philadelphia trio had set out in hopes of meeting with high-ranking Nazi officials –perhaps even with Hitler himself– and arguing the case for making it easier for Jewish families to leave the Reich. But the high-minded mission was rebuffed. “Germans Ridicule Visiting Friends” read the headline in the December 9 edition of the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. The accompanying article, an Associated Press dispatch from Berlin, reported that a German Newspaper controlled by Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels “declared today that ‘we must laugh’ at the Quaker delegation which is coming from the United States to investigate the condition of the Jews and other minorities in Germany.”
Other groups, including several leading Jewish organizations, had been trying since 1934 –within a year of Hitler becoming Germany’s chancellor– to bring Jewish children to safety in the United States. Such efforts had yielded very little success, resulting in the rescue of only a small handful of children before bumping up against America’s stringent immigration regulations. No one could figure out a way to bring in larger numbers of children. By the time that Louis Levine left Gil’s office on that January afternoon, Gil knew that he could not possibly turn down the challenge that others had been unable to meet.
Translation - Spanish FILADELFIA
ENERO, 1939
Eleanor Kraus posó su mirada en el salón comedor de su espaciosa casa de ladrillos ubicada en la Calle Ciprés, en el acomodado vecindario Fitler Square en Filadelfia. Se acercaba la hora de la cena y Eleanor quería percatarse que todo estaba listo. Aunque su esposo, Gil, aún no llegaba a casa de su despacho en el centro, ella ya estaba vestida; eligió un vestido de seda y un par de zapatos clásicos con trabilla. Un collar de perlas a dos vueltas, junto a un par de zarcillos nuevos que hacían juego y una capa de pintura de uñas en rojo oscuro completaban su atuendo. Carlota Greenfield, una de las sobrinas de Gil, llevaría a su prometido a cenar, y Eleanor, como siempre, quería que todo brillara.
Cuando Gil entró por la puerta pocos minutos luego de las 6 en punto, Eleanor lo recibió con un rápido beso en la mejilla y le recordó que los invitados llegarían en cualquier momento. Gil le sonrió deliberadamente, se quitó el sobretodo y colocó su maletín de cuero gastado en el suelo. Cuando Eleanor se volteaba para regresar a la cocina para chaquear la preparación de la cena con la cocinera de la familia, Gil llamó su atención. «Hay algo que debo discutir contigo. Ven al baño mientras me afeito. Podemos hablar allí y mientas me cambio.»
Eleanor lo siguió al segundo piso y hasta el baño junto a la habitación de la pareja. Gil deshizo el nudo de su corbata y se quitó la camisa blanca almidonada, dejándose la franelilla mientras se preparaba para afeitarse. Tenía cuarenta y dos años, y llevaban más de catorce años casados. Pero mientras él estaba de pie en el baño, llenando el lavamanos con agua caliente y luego pasando cuidadosamente la navaja de afeitar sobre su cara, Eleanor se deslumbró con lo bien que aún lucía y lo guapo que seguía siendo. Con sus hombros anchos y torso musculoso, Gil conservaba el físico que tenía hace más de veinte años cuando competía en los equipos de lucha y fútbol americano universitarios, mientras sacaba su licenciatura en la Universidad de Pensilvania.
Mientras Eleanor estaba sentada en el borde de la bañera, Gil mencionaba que su buen amigo Louis Levine lo había visitado más temprano ese día. Levine era un hombre exitoso dedicado a las bienes raíces en Nueva York, pero su visita al despacho de Gil no tenía nada que ver con negocios. Había venido en capacidad de director de Brith Sholom, una organización nacional fraternal judía a la que Gil también pertenecía.
Los dos hombres hablaron durante toda la tarde sobre una idea que parecía imposible –si podría haber alguna posibilidad de ayudar a salvar niños judíos atrapados en la Alemania Nazi. Ambos estaban completamente conscientes de cómo empeoraban las condiciones de los judíos dentro del Reich de Hitler; y discutieron la posibilidad de que Brith Sholom pudiera patrocinar alguna labor de rescate. Levine le recordó a Gil que el grupo había construido recientemente un campamento de verano para niños a la orilla del arroyo Perkiomen en Collegeville, un área semi-rural a una hora, aproximadamente, a las afueras de Filadelfia. Al otro lado del campamento, la fraternidad también había construido una gran casa de piedra de veinticinco habitaciones. La casa, prevista como un posible hogar para ancianos, estaba completamente vacía por el momento.
Gil sentía un enorme respeto por Levine y escuchó atentamente mientras su amigo hablaba apasionadamente acerca de los crecientes peligros a los que se enfrentaban los judíos –niños y adultos por igual– que vivían en la Alemania Nazi. Al pasar la tarde, Levine por fin llegó al propósito de su visita. Él conocía la reputación de Gil como un abogado tenaz que parecía ser capaz de resolver casi cualquier reto que se le colocaba por delante. Levine le preguntó francamente a Gil si él estaría dispuesto a hacerse cargo del proyecto de rescate.
Actuando casi por instinto, Gil se sorprendió a sí mismo al aceptar inmediatamente. Por supuesto, estaba consciente de los obstáculos –quizá infranqueables– que estaban frente al éxito de tal proyecto. ¿Los Nazi considerarían dejar a los niños salir de Alemania? E incluso si lo hicieran, las estrictas leyes migratorias norteamericanas presentaban otros grandes obstáculos. Pero Levine conocía muy bien a su amigo: Gil tenía un fuerte sentido de la justicia, de lo bueno y lo malo, y la idea del rescate era buena. Casualmente, tres prominentes Cuáqueros de Filadelfia –Rufus Jones, Robert Yarnall y George Walton, a los que Gil conocía muy bien– habían viajado por sus propios medios a Berlín hacía tan solo unas pocas semanas para tratar de ayudar a los judíos a salir de Alemania. Grupos Cuáqueros en Estados Unidos, organizados bajo la bandera del American Friends Service Committee, eran muy activos en una variedad de trabajos de rescate de judíos desde que Hitler había llegado al poder en 1933. El trío de Filadelfia había partido con esperanzas de reunirse con oficiales Nazi de alto rango –quizá con el mismo Hitler, inclusive– y discutir el caso para hacerles más fácil la salida del Reich de los judíos. Pero la noble misión fue refutada. «Los alemanes ridiculizan a los Amigos visitantes» decía un titular en la edición del 9 de diciembre del Evening Bulletin de Filadelfia. El artículo que lo acompañaba, un comunicado del Associated Press desde Berlín, reportó que un periódico alemán controlado por el Ministro de Propaganda Nazi, Joseph Goebbels, «declaró hoy que ‘debemos reírnos’ de la delegación Cuáquera proveniente de Estados Unidos para investigar la condición de los judíos y otras minorías en Alemania.»
Otros grupos, incluyendo varias importantes organizaciones judías, habían tratado desde 1934 –al año de que Hitler se convirtiera en Canciller de Alemania– de llevar niños judíos a Estados Unidos para que estuvieran a salvo. Tales esfuerzos tuvieron muy poco éxito, resultando en el rescate de tan solo unos pocos niños antes de toparse con las estrictas reglas migratorias de Estados Unidos. Nadie podía encontrar una manera de llevar más niños. Para el momento en el que Levine había salido del despacho esa tarde de enero, Gil ya sabía que no tenía posibilidad de rechazar el reto que otros no habían podido superar.
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Bachelor's degree - Universidad Arturo Michelena
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Years of experience: 12. Registered at ProZ.com: Feb 2013.
BA in Modern Languages with a certificate in Literary Translation and Professional Proofreading, focused, driven, organized and with a passion for languages and learning new skills, I have solid working experience with technical translation, proofreading and revising in the law and health areas, accounts receivable in the Intellectual Property areas, and with working in fast paced work environments in which time management is essential.
Among my skills there are: internal and external customer service, I have the ability to work effectively with both junior and senior staff; administrative support to different teams within the company (telephone support in English and Spanish, organization and management of meetings, budget control, stationery and equipment ordering, direct and reverse translation of emails/documents, etc.); processing of invoices and management of payments and contracts with clients and subcontractors using financial systems (ERP, Lawson, GP Dynamics); archives administration to ensure the safe keeping of contracts, forms and other documents.
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