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                                                                                                24/II.18.

[Printed on top of card: Do Not Write Between the Lines!]

My dear ones!

Yesterday the mail finally brought me a delayed card from you again from October 10, 1917. Although it was only a day off from the previous card, it took months before I had it in my possession and it leaves me just as much in the dark as I was before since I am really yearning for news from you, Robert. How did the medical/physical exam go? Paul’s location was censored, but given the current conditions, I am not surprised - I can imagine that it would be. Our home is probably totally empty now, since grandmother has surely gone to Vienna. What?! Sincere kisses to all of you from

Your Erich

Note: The return address says that he is located “east of Baikal.” Lake Baikal is in the southern part of eastern Siberia.

Today we have another postcard from 1918 from Paul and Robert Zerzawy’s brother Erich who was a prisoner of war in Siberia. Compared to letters we’ve seen from Paul to his family, mail to POWs was a lot less reliable than the mail sent between soldiers at the front and those at home.

One thing this letter tells us is that their grandmother, Helene’s mother, is moving to Vienna. Until these WWI letters were translated, I always assumed Helene had moved to Vienna with her mother in the early 1900s. However, after the Zerzawy children’s mother died in 1902, Rosa took care of them. I don’t know whether she joined Helene in Vienna for any part of the time before 1918. She would have been needed again in 1910 when Julius’s second wife Mathilda died while the children were still young. Poor Rosa had to bury two daughters and take care of their children for many years.