Letter 14

In the East Dec 6th 1942

Dear Hellmut.

At long last I find the time to answer your letter from Oct 15th , | could not write before, the Bunker was cold and my hands were cold and I had a infection on it. Now we are in the front line but is is quiet here. You might thought I was not interested in writing but that is not so. I have written more to you than to Traude, maybe the letters did not arrive, and then from the dirty Russia is not much to write about. I can tell you that I got the parcel with Cigarettes Cigars , the third one with the same # 28. I am waiting now for the 1 Kilo Parcel and I send 9 stamps home for that. I hope you got them and send the parcel. When one gets a food parcel here, one has to eat it all at once, because we can not carry it around with us, and if all the food parcels come at once, how do you cope with all the food. Today we shall be able to buy from a PX store here150 Cigarettes, 10 Cigars, | bar of Chocolate and 1 Bottle of Schnapps for 3 of us. We never had that much before, whether there is more to come we don’t know, but at times we are getting Schnapps to warm us up in this cold. A few times we had even cake, Kings Cake that is, very tasty, on the whole the food here is not to bad, but always the cold. Christmas is coming now, and I can not be home. Hope that you all get your presents and-write to me. Let me know what you got for Christmas , it interest’s me too. I suppose there is not much to buy now this year, so write, you have the time over Christmas to do so. So I wish you all at home a very merry Christmas and much snow.

Greetings from your Brother Gerhard.

From: Grenadier Gerhard Heller, FP # 21406 Grenadier Regt 515

To: Hellmut Heller , Student, Großbothen Saxony.