I have no documents with today’s date, so I am posting a letter from January 10 since I have two from that date. Here is another letter from Paul to his brother written just a few days after my recent post.
January 10, 1918
Dear Robert!
I have your letter with precious comments on the new year. …
Thank God today my course is finished. The crowned fire-emitting dragon on my lapel which now also designates me outward as a machinist has been earned with much hardship. His excellency divisionnaire raced here personally by car to undertake our final exam. He smiled with satisfaction and the six-week long torture had reached its end. On the 13th or 14th I will return to the rolls of the Regiment Landsturm 9 where my further fate will be decided.
You are doing nothing and hope the same of me? Well, thank you.…
The numeration of the letters, which caused me difficulties because of my weak memory of numbers, I will therefore give up, because the letters according to our experience arrive punctually and uncensored. …
Are you quite healthy? And do you learn anything besides the leçons with Mimi? Also Institutiones Civilis Roman and similar things? Or are you doing things as your brother Paul did in his time? How is your painting going? …
I am doing well despite snow and busy north winds coming from Sarmatishen Valley/Lowland [perhaps Sarmatia? A province of the Roman Empire including Romania]. To do ice skating, I lack the skates. To do bicycling, I lack the flatlands. And to do both, I am lacking the time….
Your loyal brother,
Paul
As I’ve mentioned, it’s amazing all the information you can find online. As I was preparing this post, I went down the rabbit hole of trying to find a World War I Austrian military insignia showing a dragon to figure out whether a machinist was someone who dealt with machines or machine guns. I had no luck but that sent me looking for military records. I know they’re out there but don’t know if they’re available via the internet. No luck today. But it led me back to Ancestry.com where I found the same US records about Paul Z that I’d never seen before: today I did something recommended at a genealogy workshop – don’t only look at the document in the database, but look at those documents nearby. Voilà, more information I’d never seen before! Those of you who have done genealogy research know the excitement and fun such discoveries are – not to mention how quickly the day disappears.
Some thoughts on today’s letter:
Today I looked up the definition of “Landsturm”. Apparently the soldiers in these units were usually older (but not Paul) and it sounds like they essentially were reserves, generally assigned to fortresses and towns rather than going into combat.
Paul talks about no longer needing to number the letters they write to each other because they don’t seem to be censored (unlike his brother Erich’s letter which we saw yesterday). I have a wealth of censored correspondence – first from World War I and then my grandmother’s letters while she was in Vienna in World War II. Strange to think that this would have been the “normal” state of affairs for my family as they continued their copious correspondence. There are echoes across the years. They learned how to communicate and how to determine whether mail was received. In today’s letter, Paul apologizes for not being able to keep track of numbering his correspondence. More than 20 years later, Helene asks him and her children to number their letters so she will know if she is receiving all of the mail. Apparently, Paul’s “weak memory” did not improve over the decades.
I am enjoying getting to know Paul – his sense of humor, his self-described laziness, his desire to assure his family that he is fine despite whatever hardships come his way.
Finally, Paul talks about the weather. I have Paul’s photo album filled with WW I army photos, including the one below. I’m cold just looking at it.
