Back onto the letter mystery

A while back I mentioned the Greek mystery WW2 letter which I need to get translated at some point for my genealogy research. The colleague who was going to do it left the company and then I was busy with the move from Germany to the UK. Right before I left Germany, I had dinner with my French colleague.

My French colleague's town is twinned with a Greek town. Each year the students travel between France and Greece for a week on each side to increase their cultural understanding. So the Greek student comes for a week and spends it in the French household and then the French student does the reverse, visiting Greece. My work colleague's daughter and her 'Greek sister' were randomly paired up and hit it off so well that they chose to be paired off together in subsequent years and still remain in close contact years later as a result of this program.

So my work colleague told her daughter about this Greek letter. The daughter told her Greek friend who told her family who are intrigued. So tomorrow a copy of the letter goes to the older sister of the Greek sister who is good at English to translate.

How did I come to these arrangements today since it's a weekend and I'm not in work to be speaking with my French colleague?
French colleague's daughter and I are connected on Facebook. :-)

It's all Greek to me

Here's a small scan of part of the letter. (click on photo to see it bigger)



Greek colleague sent a quick 2 sentence update by email:

-"it is old Greek" but he understands it.
(not sure if that would equate in my world to something like 'old German script', or rather that it's a dialet.)

-"it's a very strange letter." -->really curious as to what he means by that!

Hopefully he is able/willing to translate it. Dutch colleague had only asked as a favor that he confirm/deny if it's Greek as a first step. Stay tuned...

The liguistics goose chase - a mystery in progress

One of the nice things about working at big, global company J in Europe is the access to a number of people with foreign language skills, who are usually willing to help with something, inside or outside of work.

I have a letter which I discovered during my genealogy research. It has a story attached that it was sent to my great-grandmother from Europe, and that it has something to do with two of my grandfather's younger brothers. Both were killed during WW2 and are buried in military cemetaries in Italy. My grandmother remembers when the letter arrived, and that her mother-in-law had taken it to the Veterans' affairs office who instructed her to ignore it, that it was a plea from someone in Europe who had somehow found out her name, and would try to ply her for money as Europe as poor after the war. (Her memory of the story, 60 yrs later!)

So I have two pages of a letter in some foreign language that I cannot identify. I've toted the thing around here and there, and based on my own knowledge and that of others, it's none of the following:
-English
-Spanish or any other Romance language. I cannot make out a single word here, not one. Usually from my Spanish I can pick up some similar words from the Latin base.
-German
-Polish
-Lithuanian
-Russian
-Dutch

My Dutch colleague suggested that it has a Slavic base, his feeling was that it went toward Russia and eastward, due to some of the characters seeming to be well outside of a Western Europe character set. I had mentioned that I already passed it via my Lithuan cousin who group up during Soviet times and is fluent in Russian, and that he ruled out Russian, Lithuanian, and an 'old Lithuanian' dialect he knows, as not being able to recognize anything.

However, a Russian works in the next room, so it's always worth a shot. He recognized not a single word. His guess: Greek. That's my guess also as that fits the geography of the story as I know it, it's the right area of the world, and I was guessing on some of the characters looking Greek. However, it's not modern Greek as we know it, I already went down this route, trying to pick out words, such as the date and plug them into online translators.

Next stop, my Dutch colleague works with a Greek colleague elsewhere in company J. The letter has been scanned and is en route via email to see if Greek colleague has any thoughts...

Henri-Chapelle American military cemetary and genealogy

For a change, occasionally on a weekend I take off over the border to either Belgium or the Netherlands, because either one can be reached in 55 minutes. About a month ago we went to the Henri-Chapelle American military cemetery which is not actually in Henri-Chapelle, but that is the closest large town. Since it was pouring rain when we arrived, here are some photos when I was there previously two summers ago when the weather was better:



We went inside the small hall when has a large map of the war movements as well as printed information in English, German, Dutch, and French. While we were reading a group of school children and their chaperones came in and the US caretaker (I'm sure there's a better word for him), came out of his office and gave a five minute talk to them in French. As we were still there and he saw us reading the English wall, he asked where we were from and upon hearing I was an American he said, 'ah, a taxpayer, we have something for you' and brought out a color brochure about the American Monuments Commission.

He seemed like a very nice fellow, so I took the opportunity to ask if I could pick him brain about my great-uncles buried in American military cemeteries in Italy. He's a bit of a history buff and maybe the day was slow, so he invited us into his office and did some research. He was very helpful and informative and when I mentioned a certain unit in the military, he went to the file cabinet. As some members of the unit are buried there, he has had connections with members of the unit who have visited, and he mentioned that they have an 'alumni association' of former members and their families. He gave me two emails and suggested that I contact them for information about the one great-uncle (GU) who was in that group.

I sent off an email not expecting to hear much and was pleasantly surprised when I received a response two days later. The fellow mentioned that he did not know GU, but there was another former member who is heavily involved in the troop history and continued in the military for another 30 years so maybe he would have known him and here is his email, chop chop.

I sent another email out to 'the Colonel' and again set the expectations low, partially because emails change and people are busy, and partially because if someone was in this group in 1942ish, then someone must be at least 80 years old or so, and how many 80+ year olds are so connected to the internet and email? Apparently this one, big time.

The Colonel emailed me back within five hours with a lively and lovely response that he did, indeed, remember this GU and the accident when he died and he also had a photo of him in his military jumpsuit (he was a parachutist), and would I like a copy, and oh, he'll do some more research for me to see what else he can find as well as add me to the group's email list. Wow. Further, there were recommended books to read and a book about to be re-printed about the group's activities and if I want a copy he'll reserve one.

The Colonel and I went back and forth as he is a very quick emailer. He then informed me that a group does a march in that area to re-trace certain military routes and it goes past a memorial to GU's group. It's a combination of US military members who were involved, their families, and people who live in the area, so I can go if I want. It's four days of activities, so I'm just going over for Saturday, and the Colonel has suggested that I contact a certain Belgian fellow while there, that he would be interesting to meet. Even further, there is a different, but similar commemorative activity that takes place in Germany so he'll be sure to connect me to that one as it's in the summer and attended by other interesting people.

On the negative side, these activities in Belgium are actually this weekend. Also, it's this weekend which is Karneval in Germany. I'm not such a big Karneval fan, I never take off of work for it, but I do usually go out on the Saturday night and to the parades on Sunday, because I do enjoy when the Germans relax and have fun. So it puts me out of commission, really, for Saturday, but I'll still get to go to the children's parades on Sunday.

I am really looking forward to Saturday. Having done genealogy research now for over three years and to have just fallen into this is fantastic.