From Joseph’s letter, dated November 1, 1945, to his likewise rescued sister,
Paula Kuhn and her niece, who obviously were not well taken care of at a
refugee camp in France, we find out further details:
In my preceding letter I told you, that our Alfred and Gertrud arrived here by
”Kindertransport” (children’s transport); first they had to be placed under
quarantine for three weeks, but now they have been with us for two weeks. Both
of them became pretty tall. Alfred recognized us immediately, however,
Gertrudchen (little Gertrud) did not; initially she only spoke Dutch. In the
meantime both feel at home already. Today we celebrated Gertrud’s 11th
birthday. She was showered with presents, almost everyone from the house
brought something, and then we had quite a kaffeeklatsch. There were more than
20 people. The housemother (housemistress) presented a huge ring of cake. She
hadn’t experienced a birthday like that in a long time.
Unfortunately we didn’t hear any further news from our dear Milly. At my
request the ”Bureau voor Oorlogspleeg Kinderen” informed me as follows: ”We
regret to inform you, that we could not find out any further news about your
daughter, Emilie Strauss, born March 23, 1927…”