Letter from Lubomir Maleeff in Sofia, Bulgaria — page 1 (post-WWII thank-you for relief package)
Book 2, Page 185 ·1945–1949
Transcription
Dear Mrs. Walker,
The surprise and the joy which your package gave me was really great. I simply have no words to express my thankfulness for your tender attentions and care toward us.
The hard life we have after the last war and act of attention and good will can not, but touch us deeply.
Our two countries are indeed very far from each other. In spite of that every Bulgarian knows much about your country and your people. And if there is something for which the Americans are known here it is their readiness to help those who are in need. A really expression of that is your help
AI Notes
First page of a two-page letter in blue ink on a single folded sheet, addressed to Mrs. Walker by a Bulgarian correspondent named Lubomir Maleeff thanking her for a relief package. The closing and return address are on page 186. The writer’s English is non-native and idiosyncratic; spellings and phrasing are preserved as written.
The letter is part of the wave of private American relief parcels that flooded into postwar Europe in the late 1940s alongside organised efforts like CARE (founded 1945) and the Marshall Plan (1948). Bulgaria, which had ended the war as a defeated Axis ally, was placed under Soviet occupation in September 1944 and proclaimed a People’s Republic in September 1946; by 1947 it was closing in on Stalinist one-party rule. American food and clothing parcels to private correspondents in Sofia were tolerated only briefly in this window before the Cold War froze most direct contact.