December 18, 1944
Mutzig, France
No. 73
Dear Folksies,
Surprised that I should write again today, aren’t you?? Well, I am! Have done a bit of writing and also reading in the last 24 hrs. Started reading the “Razor’s Edge” last night and damn near couldn’t put it down – read to the wee hours and then stayed in bed this A.M. until noon just reading it. Intend to go to bed after writing this tonight (it being 7 P.M. now) and may even finish the bloomin’ book tonite. It is certainly written in an original manner with plenty of thought material there to digest.
David and Jeanne are still looking for an apartment, but in the meantime are definitely staying at Mrs. Weill’s. Lilice and Claudine and family will likewise be near Jeanne & David, so you see there ought to be a swell re-union in the not too distant future!!
Paulette had returned to her mother’s house and found my card to Sadie waiting there and consequently hurried to write to me. She, too, is returning with her kids. Raymond is in the army. She has heard from Anthony who apparently is still well and keeping his spirits up.
Fadley just presented me with an interesting statistic! In one month, November, we used $57,000 worth of Penicillin right at our own hospital! Quite a figure, eh?
Carroll and Klemp were going to visit Lynn yesterday, but they did not get there. It seems that they decided that the shortest distance between any two points was in a straight line, but when they saw some awfully big craters beside the road, on both sides, and saw fresh, un-travelled-on, dirt on top of the road, and were finally stopped…they realized their mistake and came hi-tailing it back home with not the slightest intention of trying the short-route that day. Carroll said that Klemp was so bloomin’ scared that all Carroll could do was laugh at poor Klemp, and it wasn’t until they were back that reaction set in on Carroll and he realized what a narrow squeak they had.
Loads of love,
.
René says that he got a letter from Paulette Leon (above), who returned to the house in Paris where her mother (Sadie Bine Leon) had lived. Paulette wrote to René when she found a postcard from René to her mother. His postcard, mailed in November, never reached Sadie (below), who had been deported from Paris on June 30, and died in Auschwitz on July 15, 1944, at the age of 73.
