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The cover illustrated is the outward half of a reply-paid Ostarbeiter postcard (Michel P310.F). These cards, inscribed in German, Ukrainian and Russian, were introduced in 1943 for the specific use of ‘slave’-labourers from (mainly) the Ukraine, Ostland and occupied Russia who had been deported from their homelands to work, often under inhuman conditions, in camps in Germany proper. Used they are still desirable items, but they were even scarcer until a few years ago when a large quantity turned up in the Ukraine. Clearly production exceeded need as from 1944 the surplus, often with the outward and reply halves separated, was sold at German post offices for use as normal postal-stationery cards by the general home population.
This particular example is one of these, but posted three weeks after the war’s end in what had been Zwittau in (9b) Ost-Sudetenland by a woman enquiring of a neighbour back home in Jägerndorf if her house was still intact for her to return to – apparently oblivious of the fact that Zwittau had by then become once more Svitavy (and Jägerndorf likewise Krnov) in the re-born Czechoslovakia, and that both she and her neighbour were probably in line for deportation. It seems that the card nevertheless saw postal use, albeit as a disallowed item, for it bears an oval ‘Poštovní úřad / [ornament] / Svitavy’ [= Svitavy post office] and a single-line date ‘1.6.45’, and a postal official has written in the new town name ‘Krnov’ and ‘60’ for the 60 haleru postage due in blue crayon. (By coincidence, the Czech word ‘úřad’ [= office] is struck right over its Ukrainian equivalent!)
It was this item, submitted to the Michel editors in early 2000 when I noticed the Russian word ‘БУKBAMИ’ (= ‘in [Latin] letters’) mis-printed as ‘БУKBMAИ’, that led to the cataloguing of the variety ‘P310.I Fehldruck’. A normal card is illustrated for comparison.
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