POSTCARD FROM POLAND

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 286, 30 August 1941, Page 12

POSTCARD FROM POLAND

News Of New Zealander WRITTEN IN UKRAINIAN (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, August 29. A postcard from Poland, bearing a printed message in a language which they could not identify, gave to Mr. ami Mrs. E. E. Upston this week the first news of their son, Gunner P. Upston, Selwyn, since they were informed that be was reported missing after fighting in Greece. The language is believed to be Ukrainian and a translation made by a Polish resident of Christchurch reveals that Gunner Upston was apparently in a distribution camp for prisoners of war when he signed the card and was unwounded and in good health. The parents were naturally puzzled when they received the postcard and it was forwarded through the postmaster in Dunsandel to Professor L. G. Poeock, professor of classics at Canterbury University College, for translation of the message in the belief that (he language was Greek, as Gunner Upston was last seen on a beach during the evacuation from Greece. The language was not Greek. Bulgarian, Czech, or Russian and definitely not Polish, though the postcard came from Poland. Professor Pocock passed the postcard on to a Polish resident whose wife is a Czech and he found that the message was printed in the Slav alphabet. With his wife’s assistance and using a Russian dictionary be was able to make a translaton. The postcard, which was posted on June 14 and arrived at Selwyn on August 2G, bad been stamped three times by German military authorities and also by a censor.