Letters
I have been reading and deciphering letters from the past, mostly 1930's through 1940's written to my Aunt Barbara. She had moved away from her family in Germany and they wrote faithfully to her. I am just amazed that those letters were saved, first by her, then by my grandmother, then my Mother saved them, and now I found them, all in a pile, saved with my Mother's belongings. They give the details of life in my Grandmother's house in Berlin, while my Mother worked in the ballet studio, they show how times were bad during the war, and then the letters from my Aunt's two nephews in POW camps here in the U.S.A. gave her information about how the family was, when she got no letters during the war. then there is a group of post-war telegrams and letters from my Aunt to certain Army personnel, about contacting her family, and bringing them out of Germany, and the problems involved with sending food and clothes. There are "sightings" of my Mother with two children as she heads north to the harbor of Bremen, hoping to travel to America, and then a telegram to my Aunt, telling of her arrival in New York.
The letters my grandmother typed in German are quite easy to read, even though on onion skin paper, but when she writes in the old German script, I find it very hard to transcribe her words into the current letters. Several letters written by her sister are really easy to read, being of the same letters we write(that I learned in school), and even when my grandfather writes, I can read it more easily. I have grouped the letters by dates, and will try to make sense of them.
Two nephews of this Aunt ended up as German soldiers in a POW camp here in 1944. The letters by the two young men in the POW camp in Camp Crossville, Tennessee, are interesting, in that one writes in German, and the other who makes the effort to learn English while he is here, writes in English, saying the southern drawl is hard for him to understand.
These letters are such an integral part of our family's history, that I feel compelled to try to translate them for my children, and record what they say. It is a story worth preservation.
The letters my grandmother typed in German are quite easy to read, even though on onion skin paper, but when she writes in the old German script, I find it very hard to transcribe her words into the current letters. Several letters written by her sister are really easy to read, being of the same letters we write(that I learned in school), and even when my grandfather writes, I can read it more easily. I have grouped the letters by dates, and will try to make sense of them.
Two nephews of this Aunt ended up as German soldiers in a POW camp here in 1944. The letters by the two young men in the POW camp in Camp Crossville, Tennessee, are interesting, in that one writes in German, and the other who makes the effort to learn English while he is here, writes in English, saying the southern drawl is hard for him to understand.
These letters are such an integral part of our family's history, that I feel compelled to try to translate them for my children, and record what they say. It is a story worth preservation.
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