Cooper, Ethel – December 1915
12.12.15
My dear Emmie,
The letter pile is growing big again – here is the 20th letter of the second year – I must hunt for a means to get them to you some day, but even if the censor would pass them, they could not go, letters of more than a page are altogether forbidden now.
I have just been reading the morning’s list of forbidden things – no Christmas cakes may be baked, no milk may be served in any restaurant, shop, hotel or pension, and all copper and nickel has to be given up by the 31st March…
19.12.15
My dear Emmie,
… I had a letter this week from Frau Raiola, asking me to do the distributing of the Christmas presents to the English prisoners from the Red Cross in Switzerland…
I have good news from Sandor who has definitely been put to military office work – up to now he has had to report himself and be inspected every six weeks. Now they seem really to have come to the conclusion that he is not a suitable object for drill…
26.12.15
My dear Emmie,
We are in the middle of Christmas festivities, such as they are – presents and invitation have all taken the form of food and meals this year! You would laugh if you could see my table of presents at this minute – a tin of sardines, a large sausage, two pots of jam, cakes, a pound of tea, fruit and 1/4lb of butter…
I still have not got the work for the Swiss Red Cross half done. The cases of presents have not arrived, and I have letters written without the necessary parcels and parcels without the necessary addresses… If the men get them by the New Year they will be lucky.
