Yes. I have postcards from my sister when we were young and living apart. She would take regular old index card and make them postcards. And, I have hand written letters and cards from my husband. I have a copy of a letter my great uncle wrote while in Europe during the war addressed to his sister, my grandmother, and my grandfather and mom (who was a baby at the time). It was not handwritten, he typed it, but it was in his words, and I would consider it handwritten. It is interesting to read his view of the war and I love how he constructed his sentences, the language he used.
Here it is below if you are interested:
Dear names withheld
I know that I could have written to you sooner, but I assure you that any letter that I did write would have been far from satisfactory inasmuch as we were moving so fast towards the close of this thing that we were lucky to get a rest and it is still a wonder to me that I managed to get off a letter to my wife nearly every day of this trip. Anyway, all the traveling did not go for naught for the war has been brought to a close, although I can’t say that I had too rough a time or that our unit was as prominent in the fighting as some of the others, it still is not a bad feeling to know that I did something in order to bring about the downfall of this cruel machine that has operated here for the past twelve years.
I know that all of you people are apt to minimize the cruelties that have been going on here for so long because of the propaganda that is put out by the newspapers and I know that when I was in the states I did have a tendency to think that a lot of the things that were printed were exaggerated to a great extent by the correspondents. However, since I have been here and especially in the last week or two, I have seen things which make me realize that everything that was ever written about the atrocities of the Germans can well be believed because they have been capable of anything. I have seen thousands of people who have been inmates of the concentration camps walking or dragging themselves along the roads only in the hope that they get as far away from this place as possible. The majority of them are skeletons of human beings, and I have spoken to several of these refugees who have told me that in the camp that they were at, the average death rate was 200 per day from malnutrition. I know that about a week before the Americans came thru this particular area, more than one thousand Jewish prisoners were led out to the fields and were slaughtered. And now that the war has come to a close I have heard that one of the Generals has asked for mercy from the allies in the terms that are imposed upon the German people. That one really hands me a laugh but it is also true that whatever terms are imposed upon the Germans they will be merciful in comparison to the crimes that they have committed upon the peoples of the world because the people of any civilized nation could not possibly equal the acts of barbarism which have been committed here. I am almost positive that the German race will end up in this war stronger than any of the nations that fought against her.
Be that as it may, I am glad that I am not the one to decide what shall be done with them and my one thought now is to get home as soon as possible to rejoin my family and have some happiness in this world. The only disconcerting thing about all this is that the army is apt to have different ideas about where I will be sent and I must admit that I am under quite a strain until I find out what is to become of us. There is still the war against Japan to be fought and I am not too optimistic about the unit that I am with coming home very soon. My only hope seems to lie in some act of Congressional action which might concern married men with children or an age limit of some sort. What do you think of the possibilities in this direction?
That’s all for now so take care of yourselves.
Love,
name withheld