A letter

A letter from Emanuel Justman to Paulina Włodawer. Two cards separately, written on both sides; checkered cards. It seems that the letter was written on 24 May (1st card) and on one of the following days (2nd card). The content of the letter describes the subsequent events in the life of Emanuel Justman after his escape from the German-occupied territories of pre-war Poland. Before his stay in Biała Cerkiew, he worked as a forest worker [?] and in a factory, and as a porter in a glass factory. In Biała Cerkiew, thanks to his acquaintances - the protection of “my ‘brothers’ - he got a job as a telephone operator, he passed an exam for a technician. Most of the time I only ate once a day. When the German-Soviet war broke out, he remained in office with ten other people: We sat there and worked at our post under a hail of bombs for as long, until we were encircled by the enemy. With rifles and grenades in our hands, we finally broke out of this city, from which only a trace was left. He went to Dagestan: The Russian comrade asked me to come to him to Makhachkala. I stayed with him until they sent me to a craft school in Bujnaksek. And here they gave me an opportunity to work again. They gave [unreadable], canteen and salary. I've been working here for almost a year as a foreman. This is a peculiar job. You have to be an educator, a teacher, and a site manager at the same time. The letter shows that Emanuel is professionally developing and learning; he compares his present situation with the humiliating work in Poland before the war (“I, this unnecessary man, now occupy a responsible position). To the issue of Polishness he refers very differently than in his previous letters – about the Poles he have seen here he writes in pejorative way (moral cripples), stresses how important for him are the contacts with his colleagues, representatives of the technical intelligentsia from Moscow and Leningrad.