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German Diary 1944/help translate

boomchicawawa

Hi. I have a German Diary from 1944 and I would love if someone could tell me something about the owner from some of the entries. I have pics of some of the pages but I cannot read the script. The diary came from Silisia which is now in Poland and may have belonged to someone who was in a Soviet POW camp in 1945. I was told it was an army issue but the owner may have been a female civilian for all I can tell. Either way I am very happy to have this bit of history. It has normal writing until September of 44 when it goes into shorthand gregg writing script. I can just make out the entry for 6th June which mentions Cherbourg and Le Harve, which is obviously a reference to the D Day landings. If there is any German speaking History buff who would like to help out, can you send me your email address and I will send the picts. Tks

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Lawrence1895

boomchicawawa wrote: »

Hi. I have a German Diary from 1944 and I would love if someone could tell me something about the owner from some of the entries. I have pics of some of the pages but I cannot read the script. The diary came from Silisia which is now in Poland and may have belonged to someone who was in a Soviet POW camp in 1945. I was told it was an army issue but the owner may have been a female civilian for all I can tell. Either way I am very happy to have this bit of history. It has normal writing until September of 44 when it goes into shorthand gregg writing script. I can just make out the entry for 6th June which mentions Cherbourg and Le Harve, which is obviously a reference to the D Day landings. If there is any German speaking History buff who would like to help out, can you send me your email address and I will send the picts. Tks

Am I right, that you are looking for someone who can read script as well? That might be a problem for me, but translating a few entries should be no problem at all

boomchicawawa

Tks Lars for your kind reply. The problem is the writing is joined and I cant make out individual letters in order to translate. I will try and attach some of the photos I took but i think the quality is poor and you may not be able to read. Can you let me know how you get on. I will try and attach the name, and the writing that appears above the name, two parts of the inside cover page and also some of the entries from various dates. Good luck and thanks again

Dr Strange

Unfortunately, the quality of the images is pretty poor. Can you scan them or take better images?

Qualitymark

Best way to capture images of documents is to bring the document into daylight and take a photograph with a decent camera (not using flash), using the close-up mode. Transfer the image onto your computer, then if necessary use the Auto-Enhance menu item in something like Photoshop Elements to sharpen it up. Saving as monochrome (black-and-white) rather than colour often helps too.

If you want to crowd-source translation, what about setting up a website and putting up a page a day and tweeting links to the pages?

boomchicawawa

Thanks Lars for trying...when I saw the images I thought it was a long shot. They were taken with my ipod touch and look sort of ok on that but when I uploaded them to the computer, they appeared very faint. The writing in the diary is quite faint but I will try to get better images, my curiosity will get the better of me and I'm soooo intrigued to know the story behind the writer. In the meantime I am asking around for friends of friends that might be linguistically capable of looking at it in person.....Thanks to second poster for your suggestions and hints, much appreciated!

Apanachi

Qualitymark wrote: »

Best way to capture images of documents is to bring the document into daylight and take a photograph with a decent camera (not using flash), using the close-up mode.

Simply scanning them might help...

boomchicawawa wrote: »

Either way I am very happy to have this bit of history.

And so you should be, it's an amazing thing to have. How did you get your hands on it?

Qualitymark

It's not good to scan delicate old documents. Photograph them in daylight without a flash, to avoid harming them or fading them.

Apanachi

Qualitymark wrote: »

It's not good to scan delicate old documents. Photograph them in daylight without a flash, to avoid harming them or fading them.

Eh, yeah, never thought of that , you're right of course

Qualitymark

I photograph documents all the time with a fairly ordinary modern camera, a Canon digital camera, set to close-up and without flash. Occasionally if they're in pencil I have to use Photoshop Elements' enhancement, but normally they're ok even without that.

boomchicawawa

Thanks every one for your suggestions. I actually managed to get some great copies and they are very clear so I'm hoping for some news soon. I'd love to say I got the diary from an interesting source, but it was good old ebay that supplied it from a guy in Poland. He sells all sorts of old memorabilia as he lives near stalag 308 which was used by the Germans as a POW camp and then by the Soviets to house German POWs. The diary was only about 23 euro so it was worth the chance to buy, but it was far better than I thought it would be. Its def not a fake 'a la the Hitler diaries' ! There is a pressed flower in it and there is good printed info in it also, ie dates to remember right up to 1943. I was told it was Army issue but as I said it could have belonged to anyone and the entries might be very mundane. In saying that, German life in 1944 was probably far from mundane for most of the population and therefore its a great sociological item to have. There is a few references to Koblenz so I think thee owner may have lived there. I intend to keep it safe as an historic heir loom. It would be great to be able to trace the owners family but they may have chucked it in the first place. One man's trash is another man's treasure !