Today we have a postcard from soldier Paul Zerzawy working in the Statistical Bureau to the his family in Brüx, Bohemia.
Belgrad 10 VIII 1916
I just received a postcard which I sent on the 27th to Erich, with the note “missing”. Please notify me immediately with any news, possibly by telegram. Please direct yourselves with a postcard to the information department of the Red Cross in Prague and Brünn, as well as to the Reserve Batallion L14. Evidence probably also Brünn. I will write as well.
Paul
We saw the only letter I have from Erich Zerzawy that was written while he was a soldier on active duty in the July 14 post – in that letter he mentioned that he was “in the presence of the enemy” and presumably he was captured soon thereafter. In today’s letter, Paul is anxious that his letter from late July was returned because Erich was “missing”.
The rest of Erich’s correspondence in my archive was sent from a POW camp in Eastern Siberia. We saw the first of those letters in the January 8 post. I have 24 cards written in 1917 and two in 1918.
Paul tried to discover what had happened to his brother. In the January 12 post, we saw an International Red Cross information card from 1919 indicating that Erich escaped from the camp in July 1918. Like so many things in the archive, we see history repeating itself during and after the two wars, including searching for missing loved ones, longing for letters, economic hardship, and reflections on the life of a soldier.