Letter from a soldier

A Story by Sara

english project

November 7, 1943

French Resistance

Vichy, France

Madeleine Letulle

64573 Giguere Blvd.

Cambo-les-Bains, France

Dear Madeleine,

Rumors are circulating that the war will be over in days, weeks, months. I do not believe this. The Nazis have destroyed so much that it is as though they have a path cleared before them. Today we fought to save many lives, but all I could see were the lives we lost: 7 men in my company alone. The days grow darker and colder as winter sets in. Even now as I write, I cannot feel my fingers. We were told that winter uniforms would come tomorrow, but so far we have seen nothing. Many men have worn their boots so thin that they can no longer feel their toes; luckily I received new boots only a month ago. Rations and uniforms are of high value as of late.

There are many people here in Vichy who hate the Jews, whose status as citizens have been revoked. The German, influence here is sickening, and I cannot wait to liberate these people and to set them straight. The people fear the Germans, so they are forced to agree with what they say. There are even rumors of work camps for the Jews. Ghettos are the worst we have confirmed so far. Do they think they can fool us? We are fighting for all people, not just the French. However, maybe this is for the better. They move these people away from the Allied front, so we have not seen or heard from them personally. I hope only that this discrimination serves to protect the Jews from the effects of the war and keep them safe until we arrive. Until then, the Germans can do what they like. We have other priorities.

Give all my love to the baby and to yourself. Stay safe and do not lose hope! I will be home before you know it!

Love,

Claude J. Letulle

March 3, 1944

French Resistance

Geneva, France

Madeleine Letulle

64573 Giguere Blvd.

Cambo-les-Bains, France

Dear Madeleine,

Madeleine! Madeleine! I repeat your name when I am frightened and it gives me hope. Your picture is worn and I miss you so! Spring is finally showing its face and what a relief it is. However, this happiness is not overpowering; I lost a good friend yesterday, Private Jean-Paul Tillon. I have tried not to let death effect me anymore, but I feel that if I shut off my emotions then I will surely be lost.

The troops are fairly optimistic despite our losses and an end seems much more plausible now. It is almost as thought the Germans are afraid of us, and they are fleeing the cities each day. Yet, they find reasons to leave to make it look as though they are not in fact running from the Allies!

Do you remember in my last letter when I mentioned the ghettos? The strangest thing has happened as of late: they are empty. Day by day we see trains leaving the city and with the trains, the Jews leave as well. Of course, cities are being evacuated every day as precaution against the approaching front, but this is different entirely, I can sense that these Jews may not return.

Yesterday I saw a little girl and her mother walking in the new spring sun, and they wore the yellow stars. When they saw me they were frightened, thinking I was a German soldier. I told them otherwise, but they refused to speak to me. They seemed to be on the run, so none of the men mentioned seeing them. I am glad for those who can flee! How I would like to flee home to you. The little girl made me think of our own dear Adelaide.

Love,

Claude J. Letulle

April 12, 1944

French Resistance

Bern, Switzerland

Madeleine Letulle

64573 Giguere Blvd.

Cambo-les-Bains, France

Dear Madeleine,

Today we encountered a group of men in the forest. They were all shaven and wearing striped uniforms. I cannot even begin to describe the pitiful condition they were in, with their gaunt faces and hollow stomachs. They looked as though they had not eaten in years. We tried to talk to them, but they spoke broken French and all we could understand of their story was that they Jews in hiding from the Germans. We gave them food and left them; we had to meet another company so there was no time to wait.

This makes me fear that maybe the rumors were not exaggerations. These men were in prison uniforms, and were so abused. If it is true that the Germans are doing this, then we must defeat them as quickly as possible. It makes me feel that every moment we wait in hiding is a moment of cowardice, of putting off the inevitable battle.

The weather has been good lately and summer seems to be on the horizon. It is certainly a different experience to lie in trenches in warm weather rather than in the winter. Men do not want to huddle together quite so closely. Everyday I look at your picture and I imagine Adelaide growing up and helping you in the kitchen, and I imagine the pretty dresses you will make for her and what we will look like as a family once I return. I am waiting impatiently for summer. I think that Germany will surrender within weeks.

Love,

Claude J. Letulle

June 15, 1944

French Resistance

Strasbourg, France

Madeleine Letulle

64573 Giguere Blvd.

Cambo-les-Bains, France

Dear Madeleine,

This morning as we walked through an abandoned housing district, we heard gunshots echoing through the streets. We found the men responsible, a few German recruits. They were children, only 17 or 18. Yet, there is no room for pity in war, and Germans are Germans. We considered taking them as prisoners, but after questioning them we decided that it was not worth the rations and two of our men took them into an old cottage and gunshots echoed once more.

These poor boys, transformed by the war, are hardly younger than I. They make me think of my school days back in Cambo-les-Bains, when I met you. I try often to remember those days, to make sure they really happened. It seems like all of my life will be defined by the war and that even when I return home I will forever be a soldier.

Oh beautiful France! We crossed the borders of Switzerland today into northeastern France and the air is already much sweeter! However, we leave for Germany tomorrow. There are dark days ahead. I fear that as we push the front closer to Hitler and his Nazis that we will become corrupted by evil as well. It is like an airborne disease and I dread its effects.

Decidedly, the only thing that keeps me sane is the thought of you and the baby. I wish more than anything that I could be with you. I wish it more even than I wish an end to this war! But of course one cannot come without the other. Until then my dear, do not lose faith in God and his plan.

Love,

Claude J. Letulle

August 6, 1944

French Resistance

Stuttgart, Germany

Madeleine Letulle

64573 Giguere Blvd.

Cambo-les-Bains, France

Dear Madeleine,

Happy birthday to my sweetest Adelaide! I had thought I would be home by now, but Hitler has different plans. Do you remember when everyone thought that the war would end in just a few weeks? Those days are long gone now, and the summer heat beats down upon us in our uniforms and packs as we travel the countryside, soldiers broken by their cause.

We reached Germany 3 days ago. The locals sneer at us as we enter the towns for supplies. A man in his bakery began yelling in German at some of my closest friends in the company. He did not want us taking his bread or his cheese. How can these people be so selfish? They have so many surpluses; do they not know that everyone has been affected by the war? If they could see the conditions of France, England even, then they would know not to complain. How can they blame us for their poverty when their leaders started this war? Blame Hitler!

Signs on the storefronts say “Juden, sind hier unerwuenscht!” I wonder where the Jews are now. I wonder if they are all like the men we saw in the forest. What have the Germans done with the women and children? I wonder, if we somehow lose this war, what they would do to you and Adelaide, and it makes me fight harder for victory.

I am so tired. Our entrance in to Germany marks a new kind of war; we are on enemy soil. We are now on the offense, so surely the end is near. Soon I will be home! I tell this like a battle cry to the new recruits who bring word that we will be at war for 10 more years at least. We shall not believe them! I will return to you. I will return to my wife and child.

Love,

Claude J. Letulle

October 2, 1944

French Resistance

Mannheim, Germany

Madeleine Letulle

64573 Giguere Blvd.

Cambo-les-Bains, France

Dear Madeleine,

Yesterday two men died in a German air raid. We are staying in abandoned townhouses in Mannheim, and the Germans know we are here. Neither side wants to move further, but I am anxious to reach Berlin. Maybe by winter we will have progressed so far. Until then, we are barraged constantly by German airplanes. We are defenseless against these until the air force reaches us with reinforcements. The bomb shelters here are nothing more than basements, and every man is at risk of his own impromptu burial.

There was a nursery in the house we are in now, with a crib and a closet full of little clothes. I fear for these people, so similar to us, who had to flee their town for fear of the enemy. It is strange to think of this war from the perspective of the other side. To them, we are the enemy. Nothing more. To think of the Germans as humans is dangerous. Compassion in war can make a man want to quit fighting. I keep trying to convince myself that our cause is just and worth the lives that have been lost.

As we travel deeper into Germany, I feel the contempt for the Jewish people grow stronger. What is so bad about these people? Why do the Germans hate them so? Everywhere you turn there are signs that forbid Jews from entering post offices, markets, barber shops. Yet, we still have not seen them. Many children are being shipped to England for protection, but the adults have simply gone missing from the world and the locals tell us nothing. I feel that we will find them soon.

Pray for me, the battlefield is a living hell these days.

Love,

Claude J. Letulle

December 21, 1944

French Resistance

Erfurt, Germany

Madeleine Letulle

64573 Giguere Blvd.

Cambo-les-Bains, France

Dear Madeleine,

Today I write to you from the infirmary. I came down with a case of pneumonia about a month ago and am finally starting to feel like my old self again. I am convinced that crossing the Ore Mountains is what caused me to fall ill. They are letting me out either tomorrow or the next day to rejoin my company. The winter is finally settled and the days are constantly dark and cold.

It is almost Christmas, my second Christmas away from you and the baby. Many soldiers have died and more lose hope of returning home each day. There are so many soldiers in this infirmary that cry out at night for their mothers and their wives. I have not had a good night sleep since my admittance. The only good thing about a hospital is the food, which is always warm and plentiful unlike in the battlefield.

I look forward to rejoining the men. They are my only family here and it would not feel right to celebrate Christmas without them. New recruits come in each week, but they cannot replace the good men we have lost in the past year and none of them have the experience of Normandy or of the German invasion. Some of the men are traveling to Japan to help with the war in the Pacific. This is a great loss to us; even though the end seems near there is much fighting left to do.

Stay safe and warm this winter, my dear. I send my love to you both! Have a Merry Christmas!

Love,

Claude J. Letulle

February 26, 1945

French Resistance

Leipzig, Germany

Madeleine Letulle

64573 Giguere Blvd.

Cambo-les-Bains, France

Dear Madeleine,

The horrors of this world are unimaginable and I cannot decide who to blame. Yesterday I and three other men were patrolling outside of Leipzig when we saw tall barbed wire fences over the treetops and black smoke billowing from what appeared to be some sort of furnace. We drove back to our station to tell Lieutenant Chevalier and he accompanied us back to the sight.

What was kept behind those fences I shall never forget. Madeleine, there were piles of corpses thrown into pits, charred human remains at the base of a crematorium. Those poor souls that were still alive carried themselves to meet us with dead eyes and dead bodies, the living dead! They were all men and my friend, Private Girard, translated their German for us so they could tell their story.

The Germans had separated them from their wives and children, who they suspected were dead. A women’s camp was located 3 miles south of the first, but it had been evacuated. The German SS had fled the camp the night before when they heard of our arrival and had killed as many prisoners as they could before leaving. We asked these men why they were here and they told us it was because they were Jews. So finally we see what has become of these people. I tell you, I shall never sleep another night without seeing their bodies, scourged by starvation and dysentery. What kind of creature is capable of such evil? We now know why we fight.

We are getting closer to the end. The Germans are nervous, and I will be home soon.

Love,

Claude J. Letulle

May 3, 1945

French Resistance

Berlin, Germany

Madeleine Letulle

64573 Giguere Blvd.

Cambo-les-Bains, France

Dear Madeleine,

These are joyous days, Madeleine! Hitler is dead and the Battle of Berlin is over! Victory, at last! Yesterday we entered Berlin in a race with the American forces. Unfortunately, they arrived first, but we are all Allies, are we not? It was such a joy to embrace as brothers when we heard of the German surrender. I will be home soon, my dear. They are totaling our points this week to see which of us have earned our leave. Those of us who need more will be sent to the Pacific. Let us pray that I have enough1

It is the strangest thing to fight no more, to be able to walk the streets of Berlin where so many Nazi parades took place without fear of attack. The coward Hitler took his own life, and no one mourns the loss. We rejoice in these few deaths, a small compensation for the thousands of good men killed.

American and Russian forces have found many concentration camps over the past few weeks, and they predict that there are countless more. I do not believe that I will ever understand the reasoning behind this act of evil. It is more than discrimination, more than prejudice that drives a person to want to exterminate an entire race. What is even more shocking is for how long they kept it secret! There were so many months that we fought without knowledge of the Jews, Gypsies, Poles, and so many others that were trapped and killed by the millions. How is it that so many people can die without anyone noticing? How could so many people be gassed and burned without anyone hearing their cries? It is too late for them. We can only pray that we never forget.

There are only weeks that keep us apart, my love. I am returning to you!

Love,

Claude J. Letulle