War Diaries (February 23) (nonfiction)

War Diary quotations for February 23.

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Diaries

Mother Mary Cecilia Bailly: February 23, 1865

Charlie Carney, a young man that has been in our service several years, goes off on the night train to escape the draft. Poor boy, where does he go[?] I do not know.

In the Sisters of Providence Archives there is a bound transcription of the diary of General Superior Mother Mary Cecilia Bailly. She served as general superior after the death of Mother Theodore Guerin in 1856 until 1868, covering the turbulent years of the Civil War, 1861-1865. The diary consists of entries about the day-to-day activities of Mother Mary Cecilia, the Congregation and local and national happenings. Some entries are very short — one sentence — while others are more detailed.

• Civil War diary entries by Connie McCammon @ swsmw.org (May 9, 2012)

Dorothy Pugh: February 23, 1943

Bed bathed P.M… Mrs C as an audience – not a very pleasant job – still all was well. P.M. very sweet.

Dorothy Pugh (1919-2014) was Winston Churchill’s wartime nurse. Pugh kept a diary; it is signed by Churchill.

• A unique WWII archive from Churchill’s nurse @ churchillbookcollector.com

Mirjam Bolle: February 23, 1943

Half-Past Midnight

This is no life, but hell on earth. My hands are trembling so much I can barely write. This is all getting too much. This is more than anyone can bear. Another transport is leaving this evening. I had planned not to go to bed too late. Aunt Dina is staying with us at the moment. I already wrote to you that she stays at our house during the day because she has been left at home on grounds of illness and now she fears being taken away, which is what happens in all of these cases. At home on Saturday morning, she got such a bad crick in her back that she couldn’t move, not even in bed. It was awful, because it meant she wouldn’t be able to come and stay with us on Monday, as Jews aren’t allowed in taxis.

We decided to wait and see what Sunday would bring, but her condition didn’t improve. She was then brought to our house by private patient transport, that’s to say on a stretcher in an ambulance. It was terrible to see her stretchered in like that, but we still laughed, because fortunately there’s nothing wrong with her apart from her bad back.

When the ambulance pulled up at their doorstep, neighborhood women rushed out to ask what was happening. Lea said: “My aunt has become unwell, and because she can’t stay with us we have to have her picked up in this way. And would you please excuse me now, for Mother isn’t at home either.” This is the kind of act you have to put on because it would be unwise to reveal too much. Well-intentioned gossip could fall on the wrong ears. Aunt Dina is staying with us now and is already doing much better. She sleeps in Grandmother’s bed in the passage room. Since Friday, Mr. Vromen has also been living with us. He is sleeping in the back room, our former living room.

Mirjam Bolle of Amsterdam wrote at a time when conditions were particularly gruesome for Dutch Jews. Because the sick were among the first to be carted off in transports to concentration camps, people who were ill often piled into the homes of able-bodied relatives, creating cramped households. Bolle discusses the many people her family is attempting to house in this excerpt from her diary of letters to her fiancé that she wrote but never mailed. They were published in English in a book, “Letters Never Sent” by Yad Vashem in 2014.

Fiction cross-reference

• Gnomon algorithm
• Gnomon Chronicles

Nonfiction cross-reference

• Mary Cecilia Bailly (nonfiction)
• Winston Churchill (nonfiction)
• Dorothy Pugh (nonfiction)
• War (nonfiction)
• War Diaries (nonfiction)

External links

• Civil War diary entries by Connie McCammon @ swsmw.org (May 9, 2012)
• A unique WWII archive from Churchill’s nurse @ churchillbookcollector.com