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Spiero Family Letters, 1940-1942, Accession #11160, Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.
This collection of letters was given to the Library by Hans A. Schmitt of Charlottesville, Virginia, on December 5, 1994.
There are fifty-eight letters, 1940-1942, chiefly from Olga Spiero in Berlin-Friedenau, Odenwaldstrasse, Germany, to her daughter, Josepha Warburg in Kasteel Eerde, Ommen O., Netherlands. There are also two letters from Heinrich Israel Spiero (1876-1947), historian of German literature on November 14, 1941 to Max Adolf Warburg and on March 27, 1942 to Josepha Warburg; and, one letter, March 15, 1941, from Wolfgang Jlisch to Josepha Warburg. The letters from the mother to the daughter contain personal family news and serve as a record of life during wartime Germany. The letter from Heinrich Spiero to Max Adolf Warburg appears to discuss certain family documents such as marriage certificates (trauschein) and baptismal certificates (taufscheine) of the grandfather (grossvater) and grandmother (grossmutter). It also mentions Monaten [Martin] Luther's (1483-1546) Briefwechsel, Desiderius Erasmus' (d. 1536) Colloquia, and Kaiser Wilhelm- Gedachtniskirche. These letters are written in German and have not been translated.