26 - 3 - '45 -

Mrs. Maloney,

I like to write you a letter. You don't know me nor my name. My name is Sjef.

The reason which bring me to write these lettre is the next. Your husband Mike is stationed in our town and he is staying in our house all that time.

In the evening he is at home the most time with us or he is writing a lettre home. That last thing the most. He is very nice (for) to us and to my family. In the evening we are often sitting round the [?] and have a chat and a smoke. Than he is telling us of his home and his "Peggy" and "Danny".

He showed us his photographs but the last one which was made in our town was not so very good. He looks like an old man but he isn't. He don't like to send him home. I don't know or he has done it but in my opinion it was not too bad. He just comming in now with his friend Bill.

My girlfriend has catched a bad cold and he is trying to do all sort of things for paying us back for our hospitality, but it is no use. They all have done enough by liberation us. We can't do enough for them. It is a happy time now. You can't understand that so quite well.

Nearly five years with that terrible Germans. But that time is over now. I don't know more news.

I hope that you do not mind my mistakes for it is difficult to write a lettre in English.

I wish you all the best from me and my family and we all hope that the war will be over very soon and that they all are back home in a few months. My brother is in the "Dutch Merchant Navy" and haven't seen him for five years, it is a long time. But the end is coming. So the best wishes again of all here

Yours sincerely

Sjef

Now a sentence in Dutch.
If you can't translate it ask it Mike when he comes home. He has learned a bit Dutch.

[??] U kunt ook hem vertrouwen - Sjef
Translation - You can trust him.