FRENCH POSTCARDS

After basic training my uncles unit was sent to France. Exactly what route he took from Bavaria to France is unknown to me, but when he arrived in France he did something wonderful, something that would give great insight in the future. He purchased a few postcards on or about October 29th 1943, and began to keep track of his movement, up until the time that he was captured in Villers Bocage. On the cards he lists the town, the date, and the type of building he was held up in. March of 1944 you will notice must have been some of the worst times during his deployment. You can notice how his handwriting begins to deteriorate slowly as time moves on. In March of  '44 his handwriting reverts to childlike. The photos below are all labeled as "France 1944". It seems they had some down time to pose for photos between the horrors of war. These moments must have meant allot to these men, many of whom would be dead weeks later. None of the photos include my uncle, but as an interesting aside, his assignment was Unit Photographer, so he may have been the one to have taken these snapshots. 

Schönsee August 1943 Basic Training

By August of 1943 my uncle found himself in Basic Training. He was stationed in the town of Schonsee, located in the district of Schwandorf, in Bavaria, Germany. Looking at these pictures you will surely notice one peculiar detail, they are all carrying shovels instead of rifles. I would have to assume this is due to a lack available weapons for these non-combat troops. By this time in Germany, things were not good, he knew this, and it must have been a tremendous pressure to know that after this truly 'basic' training he would be sent to a very real war. The look on the face of my uncle in the picture below speaks volumes. He was 17 years old, and about to embark on a trip through Hell that would consume the next 3 years of his life, and all he had right then, at that moment, was a shovel. 

April 6th 1943

It was April 6th 1943, he was 17 years old, and he just received his official call to enlist in military service. He surely knew that this mail was coming. His older friends had received theirs without fail. This was the fate of every young man in Nazi Germany in 1943. It is hard for me to imagine what level of anxiety must have come along with that postcard. When I turned 17, my mind was primarily occupied by thoughts of girls and fun, not war and a very possible early end to life. The second card is dated May 5th, 1943, it is an appointment card for an X-ray to affirm his health. One has to imagine that by 1943 in Germany, it took very little to qualify and pass this exam. The final document shown, the larger letter, designates his proper acceptance into service of the German military. He was now on his way to a speedy and rather crude basic training, one that would never prepare him for what he would experience. April 6, 1943 was the day that his life would change forever.

Photos in a Box

This is my uncle, Joachim Kessler. I should say he is my pseudo-uncle, in the sense that he was not actually related to me in the way uncles usually are. He was a friend of my mothers and her family when they where younger. His wife had passed away around the time I was born, and he never had any children of his own. He was a really good man who took all of his adopted nephews on trips and instilled in each of us special memories that will last a lifetime. Recently my cousin who lovingly had cared for him the last several years as his health deteriorated gave me a box of photos, documents, and a small book. The photos included my uncle long before I knew him. During a time of which he never spoke. A time in his life I knew little about, and was simply never discussed. But these snapshots and documents paint a nearly complete picture of his time in service of the German Infantry, his capture, and his life as a prisoner of war in one of Canada's most notorious camps of WWII. Clearly these documents meant a great deal to my uncle. They were a reminder of a different time, and era the world has tried so hard to move past. Now I have been given the honor of preserving and maintaining these items. I have decided they are too interesting to not share, therefore this blog will be my vessel in which I preserve the timeline of events, and tell the story of a man that would become if nothing else, one of the great 'uncles' of all time.