# WWII-era letters in German - help needed!! (long) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 1, 2009, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-era-letters-in-german-help-needed-long/515959 "2009-11-01T17:53:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Quasimodem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Quasimodem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodem)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-era-letters-in-german-help-needed-long/515959/61 "2009-11-06T02:59:16Z")
> [@Svejk\_1](#): > > Did #[10](http://www.flickr.com/photos/44263726@N03/4073441744/) too - wasn’t much better. Yes, tough one, Švejk (had to copy and paste your name!;))! Did good though, my friend!🙂 I could not not even separate the words.(!) Awesome effort and I am sure the OP appreciates it! Dopers rock! We’ll get this done! Quasi ---
**Author:** ![Gam\_Zeh\_Yaavor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3e96dc/32.png) [@Gam\_Zeh\_Yaavor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gam_Zeh_Yaavor)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-era-letters-in-german-help-needed-long/515959/62 "2009-11-06T06:19:36Z")
Update (now with English!): Posted to Flickr are a few new sets of scans. One is a long, very evocative letter in English, from a representative of a branch of Regina Barsky’s family in the UK. A few words were hard for me to make out so any input (including from non-German speakers) would be welcome. A transliteration is posted in the description of 36(0). Also added is a group of letters from Isaak Einhorn, also of the UK contingent, relationship uncertain. These letters are in German. The content should be interesting, since the letters span his term of service from the very beginning of the war until 1949. His handwriting, however, is…patchy. About half of the total scans are now uploaded. Many of the rest are also from Isaak Einhorn. To all the heroic contributors: you guys are rock stars. Seriously. Since mailing cookies is impractical I’m open to suggestions on how to repay/reward all your efforts. Recognition and acknowledgment should anything come of this goes without saying. ---
**Author:** ![Gam\_Zeh\_Yaavor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3e96dc/32.png) [@Gam\_Zeh\_Yaavor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gam_Zeh_Yaavor)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-era-letters-in-german-help-needed-long/515959/63 "2009-11-06T07:21:57Z")
OK, slight revision: I was confusing Isaac Einhorn and Isidore “Dortsch” Einhorn, his son; their first scans have been posted. Dortsch is the one who was in the service, and who according to my sister’s notes: “studied art, lived in Italy, caught by nazis and put to work on Algerian railways, ruined his health. joined brit army, married italian and lived in bologna until he died in 1959.” The letter I posted is from Bologna in 1949, the last-written of all the correspondence as far as I can tell. There’s some more of his stuff to be uploaded; should be interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Wallenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b5a626/32.png) [@Wallenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallenstein)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-era-letters-in-german-help-needed-long/515959/64 "2009-11-06T11:16:15Z")
> [@](#): > > For anybody interested, here’s what I do know about the Elfenbeins: they were from Vienna (1080 Wien, Alserstrasse 55/17, in case anyone’s in Vienna with a camera right now) and were transported to the ghetto in Opole, occupied Poland in February 1941. The official paper trail ends there, and so they were presumably killed at Belzec or Sobibor in early 1942, along with the rest of the ghetto, although it seems from two of the translated postcards that one of them died in the ghetto. The Yad Vashem archive suggests that [Lotte Elfenbein](http://207.232.26.141/YADVASHEM/28031355_367_0231/209.jpg) had a cousin in the UK (Anna’s niece): Madeline Joyce [12 Strathmore Road](http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=50.821632,-0.409515&sll=52.346974,-1.572537&sspn=0.018168,0.038581&ie=UTF8&t=h&z=16) Worthing West Sussex Might be another link in the story if Madeline or her family are still around. ---
**Author:** ![Gam\_Zeh\_Yaavor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3e96dc/32.png) [@Gam\_Zeh\_Yaavor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gam_Zeh_Yaavor)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-era-letters-in-german-help-needed-long/515959/65 "2009-11-06T16:38:47Z")
> [@Wallenstein](#): > > The Yad Vashem archive suggests that [Lotte Elfenbein](http://207.232.26.141/YADVASHEM/28031355_367_0231/209.jpg) had a cousin in the UK (Anna’s niece): > > Madeline Joyce > [12 Strathmore Road](http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=50.821632,-0.409515&sll=52.346974,-1.572537&sspn=0.018168,0.038581&ie=UTF8&t=h&z=16) > Worthing > West Sussex > > Might be another link in the story if Madeline or her family are still around. Good find, thanks; one of the letters from Isaak Einhorn has a return address in Worthing. I wonder if Madeline might be the “Ma” referred to elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Found\_In\_Translation](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ebca7d/32.png) [@Found\_In\_Translation](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Found_In_Translation)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-era-letters-in-german-help-needed-long/515959/66 "2009-11-06T17:01:26Z")
I’ve tried to fill some of the gaps in # 10 that **Švejk** already worked on. I think part of the difficulty is the mix of writing styles - while the writing appears to be in antiqua (the rounded letters generally used today) a lot of the letters still have the shape of the old German (broken) style of writing. I’ve also worked on transcribing 44(a) but there are still too many gaps to make a translation meaningful. I’d love to see if others can come up with more. This letter was written on May 8, 1945, the day the war in Europe ended so it’s even more of a historical document than the other ones. I can work on # 2 next; that’s a legible one. ---
**Author:** ![Gam\_Zeh\_Yaavor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3e96dc/32.png) [@Gam\_Zeh\_Yaavor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gam_Zeh_Yaavor)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2009, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-era-letters-in-german-help-needed-long/515959/67 "2009-11-06T17:34:51Z")
Many thanks to Found In Translation and Švejk for working on the Palestine letters; I know they’re tougher. I look forward to #2; the author seems to have quite a story, from what I can tell. ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2009, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-era-letters-in-german-help-needed-long/515959/68 "2009-11-07T02:02:58Z")
**GZY** , I’ll give #2 a go - they seem easy to handle at first glance. I just wanted to mention that scans 2(4) and 2(5) are identical. Document 2 is two letters, each of two pages (or so it seems): one (2:3 and 2:4) directed at Ro and ‘my very dearest sweetest little Rosalind’; the other at Dortsch’s (?) mother. The vertical text on 2:3 says ‘please give the enclosed letter to my dear mother’. By the looks of it, therefore, there’s four sheets, and not five, so 2:4 and 2:5 being the same seems a fluke, but maybe you just want to make sure that there’s not a fifth sheet missing. eta: **Found In Translation** , [omniglot](http://www.omniglot.com/writing/german.htm) has an overview of German alphabets that includes (I think) what you refer to as ‘broken’, and what is being used in some of these letters. Might be useful. ---
**Author:** ![Found\_In\_Translation](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ebca7d/32.png) [@Found\_In\_Translation](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Found_In_Translation)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2009, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-era-letters-in-german-help-needed-long/515959/69 "2009-11-16T00:23:05Z")
I hope this doesn’t violate the etiquette about bumping threads. Just a short note - I posted transcriptions and translations for the letters 2 and 4 (with some gaps) on **Gam Zeh Yaavor** ’s Flickr site ([Elan Love | Flickr](http://www.flickr.com/photos/44263726@N03/)). That’s as far as I can read those letters - the writing in the other ones is just too hard for me to decipher. ---
**Author:** ![Gam\_Zeh\_Yaavor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3e96dc/32.png) [@Gam\_Zeh\_Yaavor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gam_Zeh_Yaavor)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2009, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-era-letters-in-german-help-needed-long/515959/70 "2009-11-16T05:49:45Z")
**Found In Translation** , thanks for the work on #4. The rest of the scans will go up within a week or so, in one or two large batches. It’s a mixed bag in terms of ease of reading but some of it is typed and some of the rest shouldn’t be too illegible. I’ll bump the thread (hoping with\*\* Found In Translation\*\* that it doesn’t violate etiquette) when they’re all uploaded. ---
**Author:** ![kidneyfailure](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9f8e36/32.png) [@kidneyfailure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidneyfailure)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2009, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-era-letters-in-german-help-needed-long/515959/71 "2009-11-16T07:56:46Z")
I can’t give any advice about the translations of the letters, but you might want to check out Andrew Carroll’s Legacy Project: [http://www.warletters.com/mission.html](http://www.warletters.com/mission.html) It documents the content of correspondence from historic wars. While it seems to be mostly geared toward American correspondence, the project is also interested in letters from non-Americans (as documented in the November 2005 issue of National Geographic). At the very least you should check out the project’s site for the tips on how to preserve old letters. ---
**Author:** ![gsrhys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/96bed5/32.png) [@gsrhys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gsrhys)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2022, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-era-letters-in-german-help-needed-long/515959/72 "2022-09-24T21:54:25Z")
Hi there. I realise this thread is very old but I would be really interested in knowing the outcome of all this! My great grandfather was Isaac/Izak Einhorn and great grandmother was Netti Elfenbein. Madeline Joyce was my great aunt. Best wishes, Gareth. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b77776/32.png) [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_was_in_Saudi)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2022, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-era-letters-in-german-help-needed-long/515959/73 "2022-09-25T11:08:03Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > I sent you a PM with an email address. Please feel free to contact me if you still need help with this. Posts like this show why we need an upvote button. ---
**Author:** ![gsrhys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/96bed5/32.png) [@gsrhys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gsrhys)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2022, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-era-letters-in-german-help-needed-long/515959/74 "2022-11-16T10:47:39Z")
Hi there. I realise this thread is very old but I would be really interested in knowing the outcome of all this! My great grandfather was Isaac/Izak Einhorn and great grandmother was Netti Elfenbein. Madeline Joyce was my great aunt. The Flickr link doesn’t seem to have any of the letters or transcriptions. Best wishes, Gareth. ---
**Author:** ![gsrhys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/96bed5/32.png) [@gsrhys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gsrhys)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2022, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-era-letters-in-german-help-needed-long/515959/75 "2022-11-16T10:49:56Z")
I am Madeline Joyce’s great nephew - I knew her well! My grandmother was Rosa, Madeline’s sister. I would be really interested in knowing the outcome of all this translation, or if copies of the letters are still around. Thank you! ---
**Author:** ![Found\_In\_Translation](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ebca7d/32.png) [@Found\_In\_Translation](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Found_In_Translation)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-era-letters-in-german-help-needed-long/515959/76 "2022-11-22T01:09:06Z")
Hi Gareth, what a blast from the past! Sorry that I don’t have any more information. I just translated some of the letters and at some point the thread just ended. Not sure who of the posters from back then are still active. Best regards Chris ---
**Author:** ![gsrhys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/96bed5/32.png) [@gsrhys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gsrhys)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-era-letters-in-german-help-needed-long/515959/77 "2022-11-22T07:56:07Z")
Hi Chris, Thanks for getting back to me! I am pleased I managed to find someone who is still active on here after all these years. You don’t happen to have copies of the letters or the translations that you did? The Flickr with the originals is long gone or inaccessible. Thank you so much! Best wishes, Gareth [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wwii-era-letters-in-german-help-needed-long/515959.md?page=3)