Polish letters from the pre and post-war years and from during the war, taking Rhine-land-Palatinate as an example

Mauchenheim

The imprints left by Poles from the time of the Second World War in the region of what is today Rhineland-Palatinate have a prehistory as part of a German-Polish migration story. One does not have to go all the way back to the passage of Polish insurgents through Germany after the suppression of the November Uprising of 1831 to access this prehistory because part of it also includes the voluntary labour migration to Germany in the interwar period, which is very much in contrast to the deportations to Germany for labour which were carried out forcibly and violently during the war.

The labour migration of the interwar period did not just affect the hundreds of thousands of Polish agricultural workers who came to Eastern Prussia as a labour force, but also the Palatinate community of Mauchenheim in the southwestern province which today belongs to the Rhine-Hesse district of Alzey-Worms in Rhineland-Palatinate. Władysława Kuźniak had worked previously on the farmyard belonging to the Boos family there, when she wrote another letter to the family on 3 January 1939 in which she expressed her happiness at being able to work in Mauchenheim again, and this time with her sister Cecylia. Sisters Władysława and Cecylia Kuźniak were living in Siemianowice, or Ożegów, Wieluń county, south of Łódź, when Władysława Kuźniak wrote her letter dated 3 January 1939:

“Ożegów, 3/1/39

Dear Mr Boos

First, I’d like to let you know that I am hale and hearty and I hope the same is true for you. I have received your letter for which I heartily thank you. And I was extremely happy that I received the letter from you and read in it that you have already given the papers to the employment office so that I can come to you again. Would you be so kind and put in the contract which day and month you want to have me there to work. I will be sent to you to work in the month and on that date. Thank you for the lovely letter. Dear Mr Loos, now I would like to inform you that from 15 December 30 we had a lot of frost and snow. But as of 30 December, it is a mild winter.

I think about you all every day and the days are very boring for me in Poland. If only the day that I can come to you again would come quickly. Now I have not one to write as I you your wife and Ruth and Otto I now warmly greet your grandmother and Lehne [Translator’s note: in parts, the German is not expressed very clearly]

My dear Ruth and Otto, I am very bored without you, you are always in my thoughts.

Your Wadi

Please reply.

Your Wadi

Now, my sister and I send greetings to your brother-in-law Albert Knobloch and my sister is very happy that she can come with me this year. We are very happy that we will not be working far from one another. Now we send greetings to Mr Albert Knobloch with wife and son, warmest regards to all the Knobloch family. Please reply.

Your Zezilie and Wadi

Good bye.”