POSTAL HISTORY
Two covers with surviving letters are described by postal historian Dane Garrod, together with the background of a woman who made the best of a troubled world
We examine two letters sent by a woman who made the best of a troubled world, and take a look at the ephemera and postal history relating to ‘Somersetshire’
The 1930s was a decade of internal turmoil across Europe and beyond, and the precedent for the following years of both external and internal conflagrations. It was time to ensure continuing welfare as never before, and to be alert to impending danger and take any action that one could.
Into this world in late 1908 was born Karoline Hermann of Jewish parents in Vienna of German nationality. In Vienna she was known by the familiar name of Lintschi, and this appears on the cover she received from the Netherlands in December 1939. Her father died in the Great War, and her mother Rosa brought up Karoline and her brother Josef in a simple but upright way. As the 1930s came, her personal life brought further strife. Having married in 1932 at the age of 23, her surname became Schrotta, but according to the Laws of Nuremberg she was not Aryan, and therefore her Catholic Austrian husband divorced her. Karoline wrote these facts in a surviving document called ‘Course of Life’. With the problems of violence and discrimination and being left to fend for herself, she somehow made her way to England, fleeing for safety and leaving all behind. She arrived in England in June 1939, only a short time before war was declared.
That declaration of war by Britain was made on 3 September 1939, a fortnight after a letter from Vienna was received by Karoline at Wallington in Surrey. The cover shows a 25 pfennig ‘Hindenburg’ stamp of Germany as Austria had been annexed into the German Reich on 12 March 1938. Surprisingly, the country of destination – England
– has not been written on the envelope, but it still made the journey. The postmark of ‘WIEN / 16.8.39 / -13 / B’ is accompanied by a slogan and with no postal marks on the reverse. Karoline had found employment as a maid with a Mrs Dale at a house called Weedon, and successfully avoided being sent to a detention centre as an alien. The card index entitled ‘Female Enemy Alien - Exemption From Internment - Refugee’ has survived and is dated 20 November 1939 and confirms she does not desire to be repatriated!
With war and postal censorship now dominating all correspondence, three letters were sent in one envelope from Den Haag (The Hague) in the Netherlands, being written during December and sent together in the first few days of January 1940. The cover is addressed as ‘Miss’ which is technically incorrect, although she had been divorced, and her name of Lintschi is used instead of Karoline. The postage stamp of 12½ cents shows Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands and an unclear postmark which includes ‘SGRAVENHAGE’ / -4 ‘ with ‘1940’ at the bottom. This one had a full address with the country, and was now subject to censorship with the stick-on label over the side stating ‘P.C. 66 / OPENED BY / CENSOR / 936’. One of the three enclosed letters has a multitude of different greetings, probably all from one family who had also fled Germancontrolled Austria. The personalised postal stationery envelope has in the bottom corner ‘Martin Klein-viggo / Albertinestraat No. 3 / Den Haag’. He had been a former Viennese theatre and opera director who had left Vienna for apparent safety in the Netherlands.
By 1942 she had received mail from Vienna from her mother and her brother, both of whom did not survive the war. In 1948 Karoline was living in Cambridgeshire, and only returned to Vienna once after the war where she sadly found no one she knew. However, a smiling photograph shows Karoline Schrotta in happier times in Vienna in the 1930s. Part of her memorial are these covers and letters, and the few words about a German living in Vienna who took the brave decision to leave all she knew behind her, and journey to an unknown country. What was, in retrospect, a flight to safety.
1
The cover shows a 25 pfennig ‘Hindenburg’ stamp of Germany as Austria had been annexed into the German Reich on 12 March 1938.
2
The postmark of ‘WIEN / 16.8.39 / -13 / B’ is accompanied by a slogan and with no postal marks on the reverse.
3
The cover is addressed as ‘Miss’ which is technically incorrect, although she had been divorced, and her name of Lintschi is used instead of Karoline. 4
The postage stamp of 12½ cents shows Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands and an unclear postmark which includes ‘SGRAVENHAGE’ / -4 ‘ with ‘1940’ at the bottom.
5
This cover was subject to censorship with the stick-on label over the side stating ‘P.C. 66 / OPENED BY / CENSOR / 936’.
6
The personalised postal stationery envelope has in the bottom corner ‘Martin Klein-viggo / Albertinestraat No. 3 / Den Haag’.