How, for example, did letters continue to arrive from Europe? Now I threw myself into the task of understanding what happened next. From the notes she scribbled in the margins, I discovered that Cousin Hertha Bloch in New York had agreed to be the go-between for the continuing exchange of family letters. Because the United States did not enter the war until after Pearl Harbour on December 6,1941, there was a window of time when letters could be forwarded via the U.S. Letters written to my father’s brother Otto in Paris were also forwarded by Hertha and made their way into my father’s box. None of the letters directly mentions the war, although Martha does refer to “this illness that is supposed to last a long time.” Censorship must have begun almost immediately. It lingers like a bad smell in the form of pencil markings and mysterious numbers in strange handwriting superimposed upon the thin sheets of airmail paper. Each letter has two sets of four digit numbers boldly written across the top, reminders that censorship was real, and much more than the stuff of spy novels.
