Field post letters from hans koch, vienna, world war ii, eastern front, 1922-1945 previous letter (1943-04-24) letter no. 162 (1943-04-28) next letter (1943-05-02) east, april 28, 1943. My beloved mother! it is an old fact that the better off you are and the more time you have, the lazier you become. You will see that from my letters too, so please don't be angry about it. Today i pulled myself together; it is 9 a. M. And before we start work the sergeant and i are writing another letter. The holidays are now over; i had a great time. The weather was lovely. On easter morning the russians woke us from a sound sleep; they started singing in the middle of the village early in the morning, but only the women. The same melody and text over and over. They sang about the resurrection of christ! every three days now, morning and evening, we hear the cheering. On easter sunday they also mourned their dead; there was a lot of howling, but then they laughed again straight away. In the afternoon and evening there was dancing, first at the russian mayor's house and then in a panjehaus [pan = lord (polish, ukrainian)]. A russian also danced a folk dance, always the same monotonous melody until suddenly the wildness and passion burst out, just like the whole country. In the evening we soldiers danced too; the girls can only do waltzes and polkas. The girls were very nice but dressed in garish colors. On the second holiday we had big “kamesuri” [???] our house was bug-free, all our things taken out, then it was sulfurized for 6 hours. The place stank really badly but it's not completely broken yet. We also have other "nice pets" like swabians, spiders of every size, the sergeant even saw a [frog hopping through the room, but that doesn't bother us. ]. Date: 28 April 1943.
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