Lot 3860

Description

Australia, WWII Internment Camp, Tatura, Victoria, POW letter dated 6 June 1941 and written in English, with attached sticker ’3 Opened by Censor’ and stamped ’3 / Passed / By / Censor / 364’ and stamp of ’Dead Letter Office Melbourne 3MR42’, marked, ’George Lederer, E40027, Internment Camp, Orange, N.S.W. Australia’, to an address in Sweden via Siberia, front stamped ’ Passed By Censor / S.107’, ’Approved For Transmission / By Camp Commandant / O/??7’, ’Not Transmissable / Service Suspended’, ’Return to Sender’. Tear at side of letter otherwise fine.

George Lederer was a Dunera boy interred during WWII at camps in Hay and Tatura. He recalls that on 21 June 1942, about two weeks after he wrote this letter, war between Germany and the Soviet Union erupted and it is unlikely that the Transiberian railway was available for handling of regular mail. Whether the letter was returned from the Soviet border or somewhere along the route is unclear. The fact is that it was returned three months later, first to Orange, then back to Hay and since those camps had been abandoned by that time it reached the sender, George Lederer, in September in the Camp at Tatura, Victoria.