September 6th 44

Letter No. 19

Dear Heinz,

Sitting at the fireplace in the month of August you now experience what we did when in London and what must have appeared to you improbable whereas suffering from the heat in New York, but I confess that I endure the heat better than the chilly weather changing from hour to hour, even if fine, one never could rely on. Be careful always wearing a woollen undershirt.

Since weeks in the newspaper articles are published U.S. a scarcity of medical persons after the war. That may facilitate being discharged to finish your studies.

There was a rumor yesterday Aachen[1] has been occupied, but not officially confirmed. By the time you will have received these lines it will not have come true but the allies will have advance beyond Aachen and I anticipate the hope reached Cologne[2]. The nazis consider themselves, but alike criminals the continue sacrificing the life of so many thousands more. The Gestapo is strong enough to suppress a revolution, but there may be surprises in store of us, when the armies will have advanced in East and West. Then I hope the tribunal will not be a farce like after the last war and all those industrialists and landowners the only responsible persons to have brought Hitler into the saddle, in full degrees accomplices, fully acquainted and fully in agreement with Hitler's intentions and criminal aggressions should have to account for.

Mother has begun now to make some home work.[3] Since months a permit for any job either in factories or homes is necessitated.

Many letters we expected to get in reply to ours must have got lost. Either ours or theirs. Happily your letters arrive punctually, the last after 5 days.

Certainly I was reading the New Statesman, a very good political paper. There was more choice of newly published social and political books in the London public libraries than here. It may be different at other branches than that in my neighborhood.

As I we are going to the river I conclude in love

[Handwritten] Your father

{Handwritten] Best regards in love, mother

Notes:

1. Wonder about what rumors he heard, but grandfather was mistakenly optimistic. While the Allies had reached the German border at the beginning of September, the Battle of Aachen raged for weeks into October, not ending until October 21.

2. Cologne didn't fall until early March 1945.

3. Seem to recall Dad talking about his mother taking in sewing, but not sure what she did.