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Today we see two letters written a week apart from POW Erich Zerzawy in Eastern Siberia to his siblings in Brüx, Bohemia. Mail is now taking three to four months to reach its destination, if it makes it there at all.

11 November ’17.

My dear ones!

To my great regret, I am once again without any contact with you. Only from Berthold’s, Roubitscheks, and Helen have I received answers to my cards sent in July. They all arrived at the same time. I’d really love to know what’s going on with you. How Paul feels like a hero in the field, Robert as a recruit, and Kätherl a future teenager! I can imagine how Grandma is proud of everyone, but is also worried about all of us. If that’s justified, well, let’s not go there. In any case, she is sure that we are trying our best. Today we have ice skating for the first time. It was hard work, as you could see from our sweaty faces until it was done. But it’s a very healthy activity. Hoping for all the best for you.

Your old faithful
Erich

18 November ’17

My dear ones!

Robert’s cards from August 10th concern me. You did not quite understand the letter to Ernst Sedlacek and worried about it unnecessarily. He thinks the team camp is everything except the officer’s camp. We first years live in a separate area which is even locked by a post. [?], so we are separated from the others and just among ourselves. This is not of any great importance, since all of the barracks are alike. I’ve already told you a lot about my work in my letters. Small jobs for ourselves and sometimes these are done by paid workers. Don’t lose your head over this! You can at least believe what I tell you as much as you believe others. Next week a letter again. Thanks to Anni Weis for the card. Sincere greetings and kisses. Your

Erich

As I mentioned in earlier posts, when I first began my family history journey, the Zerzawy brothers seemed very distant from and unimportant to me. I almost didn’t bother getting these World War I letters translated because I couldn’t imagine they had much bearing on my family’s story. How wrong I was!

Paul, Robert, and Erich were my grandmother’s nephews and thus my mother’s first cousins. Although they were the same generation on the family tree, the Zerzawys were a generation older than Harry and Eva, having been born in the 19th Century. Eva and Harry knew Paul because they were virtual neighbors in Vienna and he helped them make their way to San Francisco, where he also lived until his death in 1948. Robert apparently visited now and again, but wasn’t the constant presence in their lives that Paul was. Erich died in 1918, before Eva was born, so they only knew him through family stories and photos. By the time I was born, only Robert was still living, and he died in England before I was 10 years old.

In the November 11th letter, 19-year old Erich tries to imagine the lives of his siblings, whom he hasn’t seen since joining the army. It’s sad to think he will never see them again. In thinking about his young sister, he uses an old slang word for a teenage girl: Backfisch – “fish for frying.” According to a blog about language, it has an affectionate, rather than derogatory, meaning. Wikipedia has an entry for “Backfischroman,” a type of novel that was written for teenage girls. 

Although Erich talks about having written to the family about the work he did in the POW camp, the letters we have don’t tell us much. Perhaps those letters were lost or censored.

I always like seeing my grandmother Helene mentioned. It allows me to imagine her as an unmarried woman living in Vienna, separated from her mother and her sister’s children in Bohemia, but remaining close to all of them in spirit and in letters.