Thursday, March 10, 2011

Vilijampolė (Kaunas) 1944




This is a domestic registered letter sent in 1944 from Vilijampolė to Vilkija. The postmark of the first republic "Kaunas - Vilijampole" has been used to cancel the stamps but this post office was called officially "Kauen 6" (Kauen was the german for Kaunas) during the Nazi regime, as you can see on the registration label. It was a historically pretty controversial post office due to its location at the entrance of Vilijampolė jewish ghetto.
Vilijampolė is one of the Kaunas municipal districts, given its name from the river Neris which is called "Vilija" in Slavic language. Neris river joins the Nemunas river and ends here.
An arrival cancellation of Vilkija is on the back of the cover. The letter is correctly franked with 42p Ostland overprinted stamps according to the inland registered letter rate at the time.

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