Letter from Edwin A. Shanke to parents, September 23, 1939 |
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Berlin, Germany
September 23, 1939
Dear Folks:
I wrote you ten days ago and hope you received the letter. Since the beginning of the war I haven't had any mail from home. I'm writing this in
duplicate and will send it two ways in hopes one or the other will reach you. First of all, I have a couple of business matters which I wish mother would take
care of. I still have not received the new block of blank checks for my bank account. I wish mother would take care of this immediately because it may prove
awkward.
The other matter concerns a transfer of $400 which I ordered by cable. So far the money his not arrived. Friday, September 15, I sent a cable
to the First Wisconsin Bank, our second ward branch, asking them to transfer $400 to the Chase National bank in New York with instructions it be cabled immediately to the Deutsche Gold Diskontbank in Berlin with a note that it was for Edwin Shankes Tesco account. That is the way in which we can yet registered marks, which are much cheaper than the ordinary mark. The Gold Diskontbank hank said the money still had not been cabled almost a week after I made the request. I'm beginning to get a little worried about the money. Will mother please go
to the bank and check into it at once. Maybe they never received the cable in these uncertain days. Or if they did maybe the money was misdirected. In any case I wish mother would straighten it out. If before you receive this letter the bank has taken care of it properly there's nothing to do, of course. But if they haven't done anything about it please have them transfer the money in accordance my instructions above.
Well, since I last wrote you I've been as near to the front as anybody. We correspondents are not permitted in the field except when conducted tours are made. Last week I was gone for four days. It was a
great experience even though I didn't get any real fighting news. We traveled by automobile to Krakow and then deep into Galicia to Tarnow and farther to Jaslo which is way off the beaten path. The roads are awful
and clogged with military - soldiers, guns, armored trucks, transports etc etc. We had to ford two rivers and broke through one bridge. In addition we got lost any number of times. Once we got way off the main highway into godforsaken country. As we turned around to go back, a Polish soldier in helmet and with a rifle suddenly popped over the rise in a nearby hill. Our soldier chauffeur immediately jumped out of the car waving his pistol and gave chase. The polish soldier ducked back into the woods. Apparently there were many more there - soldiers who somehow had escaped capture and
were hiding out until they get civilian clothes and work their way back home. Well, we got out of that scrape okay. Our officer guide remarked afterwards, apparently the Polish soldier was more afraid than we were.
The big problem in making these trips is to find something to eat and a place to sleep. We had a few loaves of dried bread and some canned blood
sausage and schmalz with us which we had to tackle a couple of times. When we arrived in Tarnow, a city of 55,000, late one night we found there wasn't
a thing to eat in town. The hotel where we stayed was probably the worst I've ever been in for dirt. It's farm country and we passed through numberless quaint villages with houses built of logs and with straw roofs.
Krakow is quite a pretty city because of its old buildings. Along the entire route we passed homes which had been burned to the ground or shot to pieces. One of the most tragic sights was to see the Polish fugitives, thousands and thousands of them, trudging along the roads with their entire worldly possessions in a bundle on their backs and perhaps with a baby in their arms. They were a pitiful sight. The
Object Description
| Rating | |
| Title | Letter from Edwin A. Shanke to parents, September 23, 1939 |
| Description | Typewritten letter from Edwin A. Shanke to his parents, September 23, 1939. Shanke is writing from Berlin, on a tour of the war front in Poland and changes in the Berlin life. |
| Creator | Shanke, Edwin A. |
| Date-Original | 1939-09-23 |
| Rights | This image is issued by Marquette University. Use of the image requires written permission from the staff of the Department of Special Collections and University Archives. It may not be sold or redistributed, copied or distributed as a photograph, electronic file, or any other media. The image should not be significantly altered through conventional or electronic means. Images altered beyond standard cropping and resizing require further negotiation with a staff member. The user is responsible for all issues of copyright. Please credit: Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Marquette University Libraries. |
| Subject |
Shanke, Edwin A. -- Correspondence World War, 1939-1945 -- Journalists -- Correspondence War correspondents -- United States -- Correspondence War correspondents -- Germany -- Berlin -- Correspondence Foreign correspondents -- Germany -- Correspondence |
| Format-Original | Typescript |
| Identifier-OriginalItem | Box 1, Folder 1 |
| Digital Reproduction Information | Scanned as TIFF at 300 dpi on Epson Expression 10000XL. Display image is generated from the archival TIFF. |
Description
| Title | Letter from Edwin A. Shanke to parents, September 23, 1939 |
| Page No. | p. 1 |
| Identifier-DigitalFile | MUA_EAS_00121 |
| Rights | This image is issued by Marquette University. Use of the image requires written permission from the staff of the Department of Special Collections and University Archives. It may not be sold or redistributed, copied or distributed as a photograph, electronic file, or any other media. The image should not be significantly altered through conventional or electronic means. Images altered beyond standard cropping and resizing require further negotiation with a staff member. The user is responsible for all issues of copyright. Please credit: Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Marquette University Libraries. |
| Transcript | Berlin, Germany September 23, 1939 Dear Folks: I wrote you ten days ago and hope you received the letter. Since the beginning of the war I haven't had any mail from home. I'm writing this in duplicate and will send it two ways in hopes one or the other will reach you. First of all, I have a couple of business matters which I wish mother would take care of. I still have not received the new block of blank checks for my bank account. I wish mother would take care of this immediately because it may prove awkward. The other matter concerns a transfer of $400 which I ordered by cable. So far the money his not arrived. Friday, September 15, I sent a cable to the First Wisconsin Bank, our second ward branch, asking them to transfer $400 to the Chase National bank in New York with instructions it be cabled immediately to the Deutsche Gold Diskontbank in Berlin with a note that it was for Edwin Shankes Tesco account. That is the way in which we can yet registered marks, which are much cheaper than the ordinary mark. The Gold Diskontbank hank said the money still had not been cabled almost a week after I made the request. I'm beginning to get a little worried about the money. Will mother please go to the bank and check into it at once. Maybe they never received the cable in these uncertain days. Or if they did maybe the money was misdirected. In any case I wish mother would straighten it out. If before you receive this letter the bank has taken care of it properly there's nothing to do, of course. But if they haven't done anything about it please have them transfer the money in accordance my instructions above. Well, since I last wrote you I've been as near to the front as anybody. We correspondents are not permitted in the field except when conducted tours are made. Last week I was gone for four days. It was a great experience even though I didn't get any real fighting news. We traveled by automobile to Krakow and then deep into Galicia to Tarnow and farther to Jaslo which is way off the beaten path. The roads are awful and clogged with military - soldiers, guns, armored trucks, transports etc etc. We had to ford two rivers and broke through one bridge. In addition we got lost any number of times. Once we got way off the main highway into godforsaken country. As we turned around to go back, a Polish soldier in helmet and with a rifle suddenly popped over the rise in a nearby hill. Our soldier chauffeur immediately jumped out of the car waving his pistol and gave chase. The polish soldier ducked back into the woods. Apparently there were many more there - soldiers who somehow had escaped capture and were hiding out until they get civilian clothes and work their way back home. Well, we got out of that scrape okay. Our officer guide remarked afterwards, apparently the Polish soldier was more afraid than we were. The big problem in making these trips is to find something to eat and a place to sleep. We had a few loaves of dried bread and some canned blood sausage and schmalz with us which we had to tackle a couple of times. When we arrived in Tarnow, a city of 55,000, late one night we found there wasn't a thing to eat in town. The hotel where we stayed was probably the worst I've ever been in for dirt. It's farm country and we passed through numberless quaint villages with houses built of logs and with straw roofs. Krakow is quite a pretty city because of its old buildings. Along the entire route we passed homes which had been burned to the ground or shot to pieces. One of the most tragic sights was to see the Polish fugitives, thousands and thousands of them, trudging along the roads with their entire worldly possessions in a bundle on their backs and perhaps with a baby in their arms. They were a pitiful sight. The |
