Title

Ostarbeiter Postcard

Authors

Object ID

2014.1.164

Object Name

Postcard

Date

1942

Files

Description

Front: White postcard with black printed postcard lines and text. Includes writing in purple ink, as well as several purple, red and orange hand stamps.Back: Message written in purple ink on printed dotted lines.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:

Lida Worobej, employed as a slave laborer at Miele & Cie. in Bielefeld, Germany, is writing to her family in the Ukraine that she has received letters and packages with pastries and socks from them, for which she was very grateful. She sends her regards to her friends, relatives and acquaintances back in her village of Iwankiw near Zhitomir. As a forced laborer, she lived in a Lager in Germany and worked at Miele, a company which exists to this day. While Ukrainians made up the the largest portion of slave laborers, there were Poles, Russians, and Belarusians as well. Germany had conscripted anywhere from 3 million to 8 million slave laborers. Most were young, typically under the age of 16. Many were 12-14 years of age when they were taken off to Germany. And by 1943, the age limit was dropped to 10. In the Ukraine, half of the Ostarbeiters were women or girls. Ostarbeiters from Reichskommissariat Ukraine were forced to wear a blue and white badge with "OST" (East) written on it.

Dimensions

4 x 6"

Keywords

Miele & Cie, Bielefeld, Germany

Subcollection

Labor

Recommended Citation

"Ostarbeiter Postcard" (1942). Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection. 2014.1.164.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/bulmash/445