September 7, 2013

Tatjana describes the situation.

My paternal Grandmother, Tatjana, arrived at the Schweinfurt DP camp in about 1946 and became active in the camp's administration. Before Tatjana settled in Schweinfurt—where her twins, my Dad and Jonė, also lived after the war—Tatjana briefly traveled in other parts of Bavaria while she was a Displaced Person.
 
Here is a postcard Tatjana sent to Jonė during this interval (probably in 1945): 
 

 
Tatjana wrote:
My most treasured Jonė, your aunt [Victoria] and I live in this hamlet, not far from the church, on the other side of the mountain. Yesterday we already rode 2000 meters to the top of the mountain by means of a particular funicular that takes wagons up a rail line to the very top, in the air. There, we drank coffee while sitting on the veranda and sunning ourselves. Although it was a hot day, it was rather chilly up there. We stood in line for three hours to get a ticket for the funicular. Tomorrow, if it doesn't rain, we're going to go to the mountain lake that isn't very far at all from the town—it's only about a one-hour walk. Today it rained a bit so we strolled around the shops. Beyond that, we're looking for a room because we've got to move out by Monday or Tuesday. We've also been looking for UNRRA because it's getting very difficult for us to find bread. Without a ration card we can't get a stamp—one must have a card in the first place to fashion a potato stamp. [DPs sometimes used halved potatoes to craft official-looking stamps that would pass at shops as legitimate documents.] There's no real UNRRA organization here; only a Ukrainian DP camp. [Here, there's a line I cannot read.] I'm quite worried about the bread situation, and it might be necessary for me to come back.
Thanks to my Toronto Cousin for making this postcard available to us.

2 comments:

edutcher said...

The bread situation.

There was no "bread situation" in America, everybody knew that.

Irene said...

My Parents once knew an elderly, American couple that had lived through the Depression. Both the husband and wife, farmers, appeared to think of my Parents as "soft," pampered city folk. The husband once told my Parents that they didn't know what hard times were, pointing out that during the Depression, he and his wife only had chicken to eat.

My Mom answered by stating that he didn't know what it was like not to eat.