Link to Family Tree to understand family relationships.

Today we have another postcard from Helene’s nephew Erich Zerzawy, a POW in eastern Siberia, written on May 13, 1917. He is writing to his younger siblings – his father and older brother Paul are soldiers far from home.

13./V.17.

My dear ones!

This time I got a card from Kätherl, but other than that, nothing at all. I wonder what kind of old letters she got, I can’t really imagine. But she has become a big girl, Papa wrote that to me. I have often asked you for photographs. Do send them. You could just send them as a card or possibly in a see-through open envelope. My comrade Canni [?] Kohn from Prague has already received very many. Now I remember that Katherina did once write that Hedl was engaged, but who her fiancé/groom is, my fantasy cannot guess that after such a long time. 

Along the side: I congratulate her most sincerely. She will accept them from me now also.

You can see the section of the family tree that shows the dates of all the children that only Paul and Robert survived past 1918. Neither of their sisters lived to 18 years old and according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, Erich “fled from Beresowka on July 15, 1918 (a typo on the tree says he died in 1917).

Käthe was the baby of the family, half-sister to the other Zerzawy children. Her mother Mathilde married Julius in 1903 after her sister and Julius’ first wife Ida died the previous year. I have two photos of all the Zerzawy children together. I have labeled them with who I think they are. The first photo must have been taken in 1910 or earlier because Mathilde died in 1910. The later photo must have been taken no later than early 1915, because later that year, Paul was in the army.