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Dvr H.Adler
PAL/30775
650, G.T.Coy R.A.S.C
“B”Platoon  
M.E.F.

17 August 1943

Yvette, my darling,

Three days ago I wrote you a letter, thinking that it would the last for a very long time. However the situation has turned out differently and today I have the joy of again writing my news before my great departure. It is very simply, good.

The halt still continues. Nerves are tender. Long days of waiting, empty of all interest are tiring to morale. The heat is more and more overpowering, the sun more and more irritating.

I have nothing to do because I am ready. Both physically and morally. I feel no need for any summaries. I have no need to examine my conscience. I am calm and confident. I know only too well why I am here and what is expected of me. I know and I feel. But all my previous life has been on this side of the barricade. I am only continuing. Equilibrium is in me.

The circumstances and the surrounding are not exactly the same as they were in those years. But that means nothing: circumstances change. And they will change again.

There is one other thing. A fact which a struck me. But I quickly understood it and I did not feel badly about it. Quite the contrary, it gave me courage and lifted me up in my own eyes, proving to what point I have  become more normally human, more alive. You see, I compared my peaceful sadness which  now fills me, with the enthusiastic joy that I felt when I found myself in the same situation 18 months ago. That’s to say before knowing you. Before loving you. It is evident that the cause of it is my love for you, darling.

Does that upset you, little one? It mustn’t. Fear nothing, you have removed nothing of my hate for the fascists or my love for the building of a better human society.

[letter finishes here. Broken off. Maybe they had to go.]