Letter from Ernest Loeb to family (copy), 16 June 1945

This is a letter from Ernest Loeb written on June 16, 1945 in Zeitz, Germany. The letter describes Ernest's trip to Darmstadt while he is stationed in Germany in the U.S. Army in Leipzig, presumably written to his parents or brother.

Ernest describes his trip with the army. He states "Darmstadt is completely in ruins. I have never seen a more perfect job of destruction. They told me that all that was done in 25 minutes and that 40000 people were killed in that one raid." "Frankfurt is also leveled to the ground." He then describes the destruction of Frankfurt and Darmstadt in detail, complete with street names and the status of buildigs such as train stations and houses. He found several people that he knew in Darmstadt living in partially destroyed homes. He visited the Darmstadt graveyard. He then found other people that he knew in the town and talked to them. He says "They haven't heard from Walter since the campaign in Holland. They only know that he was divorced because his wife had a bastard. That she claimed broke Mr. Schuckman's heart." He then catches up with more old friends from Darmstadt. He says "all you can hear is people telling me for you to come back. I told them that they better forget about that. You would never come back. They can't understand it." He then tells of other people he know that he learns have died, and concludes his letter.

There are two identical copies of this letter. The original version of this letter (B407.01.0001.0011.00002) is also in the collection. This version has been re-typed on a typewriter. Changes to the formatting and gramatical and spelling errors were made in this version.