Writing Letters During
the Second World War
In wartime, families were tore apart because the men were needed at the front to fight in the army for their country. Especially young men, who were believed to be stronger and more ready to fight were recruited in the army and sent to the front. It was not easy for these young boys to stay far from their homes and their beloved ones, but it was not easy also for their mothers, sisters and girlfriends to be separated from them for a period of time that could have lasted for ever.
|
In these circumstances soldiers at the front wrote letters to communicate with their relatives. In these letters they usually wrote about their health conditions to reassure their families and they also asked about their dear ones’ health. One of the recurrent topic discussed in the letters was asking about how life was going on back home. Soldiers asked about the weather, the state of the countryside and other small domestic things in order to feel part of their community despite being apart. Soldiers were already put in danger because of the bombing, the precarious hygienic conditions and the lack of food supply, that is why their mood was always very low and they needed to feel close to their families asking these simple questions. They wanted to feel in touch with their personal life, so that they could forget for at least a moment the horrors of war.
For some soldiers it was, however, hard to communicate to the families some critical issues about their life at the front. For this reason, a new figure called “war godmothers” became important during the war years. Basically, they were women in charge of writing letters to soldiers to give them moral support and women to whom soldiers could talk to about everything related to the war without making their relatives suffer because of what they might have told them. At the beginning the relationship between soldiers and war godmothers built in the letters was very formal and to share support, but after many letters were exchanged the relationship changed. Soldiers and women became affectionate, started true friendships, and in some cases love relationships that also lasted after the war was finished.