Page 3, Die Welt-Post, Thursday the 16th of June 1932

Correspondence

From Russia

   Written on the 10th of April---

Dear brother Jacob Huck:

   We inform you that we are still healthy and wish you the same. The letter you sent us we received with great joy and also the 12 Rubles. We thank you both friends that you have taken on our troubles. I was so in need, I couldn't buy any stamps. I came directly from the church; it was Sunday, midday as I called to Adam Schäfer that I had received a letter. We held a prayer hour three times in a room on Sunday and two times during the week. I still have two sons in the old home, Johannes and Peter, and at first I was afraid that something had happened to them. It is also very hard there with food and people are dying of hunger. Here I am with mother and an unmarried daughter. We were assigned to a house but it doesn't help. We had to leave and have now lost everything. From your letter I could see that you are yet not in need. You don't have to eat any fish soup like us. We receive one Pound of bread every day. We haven't seen any lard for three months. Young people can stand the removal of nourishment better than I can with my 64 years. We glean for hours in the fields in order not to go hungry, so that helps God still further.

   Now I thank you again for the loving gift that we have received and greet you as do your cousin and aunt.

                                  George Hempel

(second letter in the issue)

Page 3, Die Welt-Post, Thursday, the 16th of June 1932

Correspondence

From Russia

Written on 10 April.

Much loved friends Jacob and Elisabeth:

   We thank you for your letter and especially for the 6 Rubles that we received from you. Now we can again buy some bread. You cannot imagine how it is going with us. We will tell you only that, "up to here the Lord has helped." We receive 5 pounds of bread for four souls, everything else we must buy for a high price. We have already sold much of our clothing in order to obtain food.

   Gone from (ed. note: from) Huck is Joh. Michel, the cousin of Lorenz gen. (ed. note: abbrev. gen. is unknown) Georg Huck, and Beichnersch (Confessor?) Jaschke's boys, and Adam, son of Georg Schäfer. The other people from Huck are 800 Versts away from us, some 40 families. Of these, I will tell you some of the names: Jacob Eckhardt, who lived next to us, Jacob Hempel, Georg Sittner, Oswald Gerber, Jacob Schneider, and Johannes Sacke's boys. So many have left here for the wide world, that half of the village isn't here anymore, and those yet remaining at home would also dearly like to leave. -- Farewell, till we meet again.

                           Jacob and Annamargaretha Hempel