Caring on the home front » Writing to a POW:

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Writing to a POW

Relatives could send personal, or ‘next-of-kin’ parcels to POWs four times a year. They were allowed to write to a POW whenever they wanted, but there were a number of rules to remember:
- Most POWs in Germany were not allowed to write more than two letters and four postcards a month
- Letters to POWs could only be two sides of notepaper, any longer and they would be delayed or even stopped
- No information to do with the armed forces or the war effort was allowed – for instance, which unit someone belonged to, or what special job someone was doing. People were discouraged from talking about politics or food and rations as well
- No photographs or drawings were allowed to go with the letter. In fact, no enclosures were allowed at all.
Imagine how difficult it must have been to not mention any of these things, when you were trying to write to a relative and let them know how you and the family were.
This is an extract of a letter from a POW to the JWO thanking them for sending food parcels:

To help ease relatives worries about their loved ones in POW camps, in 1942 the JWO started a magazine called Prisoner of War, which had news and photographs from the camps.