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WWII love letters going on the Web on Valentine's Day
February 10, 1997
Web posted at: 3:00 p.m. EST
NEW YORK (CNN) -- What is being called the world's largest collection of World War II love letters will be unveiled on the Internet (http://www.grazian-archive.com) on Valentine's Day. The 1,200 letters detail the war experiences of a young American soldier and the home front life of his wife-to-be in the United States.
The letters, written by Alfred de Grazia and Jill Oppenheim, a graduate student at the University of Chicago when the war broke out, span three continents from dozens of locations and cover the period from February 1942 to September 1945. Approximately a million words survived the war intact.
"It is an incredibly varied, wonderfully touching literature of wartime." says Stephanie Neuman, a West Point professor.
After the war, the couple raised seven children. Alfred de Grazia taught at Minnesota, Brown, Columbia, Stanford, and New York universities.
"The Internet is an ideal medium to share wartime feelings with former soldiers and their lovers throughout the rest of the world," he said.
Starting on February 14, new letters will be posted on the site every week. The entire collection will later be available on floppy disks and CD-ROM.
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