From: Montebello, Brazil
25 September 1929

Dear Staats-Anzeiger!

(*Editor: In the meantime, we received $14.50 from Mr. Joseph Bender as fee for the newspaper for you, for himself and for his mother-in-law Mrs. Schell in Balmas, Bessarabia. Everything was taken care of and also reported already in the mailbox in Edition #33.)

I want to report that again Germans from Bessarabia have arrived here. Johannes Miller lives here and is submitting to patience. He doesn’t praise and he also doesn’t despise and follows the proverb; “The first step is the hardest.” Only Markus Soehn and Ignatz Ihli his son-in-law did sink low and couldn’t say enough about Brazil.

Dear friends, whoever is a wealthy man in the old homeland and doesn't have to work, should stay there and not go to the praised Canada or the jungles of Brazil. You can live well here in Brazil but you have to be willing to work. That person will also make a living and eat white bread just like in Canada.

We have rain for 8 days already and we will sow rice and corn after the rain.

I am greeting all readers of the paper here and there.

Anselmo Wagner

From: Montebello, Brazil
27 September 1929

Dear Staats-Anzeiger!

I want to submit a short report about my journey from the old homeland Bessarabia to Brazil. I am asking the Staats-Anzeiger to publish it, since friends and relatives read the paper near and far here, in Europe and simply in the whole world.

We departed the old homeland Krasna, Bessarabia on 13 June 1929 and arrived in Czernowitz on the morning of 14 June. There we had a 4-day layover because of my documents. We continued on the 5th day all the way to Lemberg, and after a brief stay, it was on to Warsaw, where we arrived on 18 June. After a 10-hour stop, we continued our travel to Bremen, Germany. Upon our arrival, we found out that our steamship had already departed 2 days prior. Because of that I had a 26-day layover and had to pay 210 marks for subsistence for 21 days - thanks to the agent in Czernowitz who unnecessarily had kept me there for 4 days.

Finally on 15 July, we boarded the ship in Bremen and departed for Brazil in South America. We were at sea for 21 days. For 12 days we didn’t see anything but sky and water. The voyage over all was bearable, because there never was any wind. On the 20th day, we arrived in the Brazilian port of Rio de Janeiro. We stayed there for 12 hours and then continued on to Santos.

On 5 August, we reached the splendor and debarked at 4 AM, but we had to stay overnight in Santos because of our luggage. The following day at about 10 o’clock in the morning we got on to the train and traveled to Sao Paulo. During the train ride we saw nothing but sky and forest. In the evening we arrived in Sao Paulo and had to spend the night there because of our documents. The following morning the immigration office gave us papers, which entitled us to free travel. We continued on to Bauru. On the whole stretch one could see nothing but mountains and woods, once in a while a small colony, a coffee plantation. In Bauru we had to stay overnight again. At 10 o'clock the next morning we traveled directly to Lins our final station. There it did not go well because no one could understand us. I presented an address but no one showed any interest and we were declined transportation. Luckily we met a Hungarian who spoke Russian and who saved my day. He arranged a car for us and we drove directly to Thomas Herrschaft and 8 other families all from Krasna, Bessarabia. They welcomed us with great joy.

Now the dear readers will have an idea about how things are when you arrive in a foreign country. That’s when you are deaf and dumb. Then you have to use sign language. That is how all Europeans fare when they immigrate to a foreign land, whose language they do not speak.

I greet Mr. Brandt the editor and all readers of the Staats-Anzeiger.

Johannes Joseph Mueller