Strictly speaking, only thirty-five letters are from Seppel, most of them addressed to his parents in Herne, a small city in North Phein-Westphalia, Germany, roughly between Dortmund and Essen. The rest of the correspondence is from his brother, father, requests to officials to locate him after he had been captured.

The first two letters Seppel sent from the frontlines. As far as we could read his flowing handwriting, he wrote in the 15 September 1944 letter about fighting with partisans and surrounding 8,000 of them in a city. The second letter, dated 5 October, was apparently wr

Strictly speaking, only thirty-five letters are from Seppel, most of them addressed to his parents in Herne, a small city in North Phein-Westphalia, Germany, roughly between Dortmund and Essen. The rest of the correspondence is from his brother, father, requests to officials to locate him after he had been captured.

The first two letters Seppel sent from the frontlines. As far as we could read his flowing handwriting, he wrote in the 15 September 1944 letter about fighting with partisans and surrounding 8,000 of them in a city. The second letter, dated 5 October, was apparently written at a bridgehead in Narew, Poland. Seppel complained of awful weather, constant rain and cold.

It is unclear when he was captured, but there is a short note from him, saying "I was with the Americans on 9 May [1945], on 25 May they delivered me to the Russians, until 28 June in POW Camp Dollersheim, now the destination changed." A response to the family's inquiry says "In response to your letter of April 25, 1946, it was reported that the Allentsteig community could not provide any information about war prisoners, as no lists of them were available. As is known here, the Dollersheim camp was evacuated, and the prisoners were transferred to another camp." (Allensteig is a municipality in Lower Austria).

Eventually, Seppel's letters to his family established their correspondence. The return address cites "Camp 7100/3". According to some sources, this camp was located in the city of Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. Their correspondence lasted until 21 August 1949. On that day, Seppel wrote: "My dear friends! Today I can confirm a lot of mail from you, including two letters from July 3rd, July 13th, and from Mia Leifels on July 19th. Thank you all very much. I won't be accepting the packages anymore, as they'll be gone for at least 6-8 weeks. It's not worth going into detail about all the mail; there's not enough space, and it's better to talk about it verbally, understood? Don't get upset, I'll get back to you soon, then I'll give you more details. Warm regards and kisses from Seppel."

It is known that the majority of surviving German POWs were released from Soviet prisoner camps in 1949 and repatriated. It looks like Joseph Seppel Wolski could be one of the lucky ones.

The collection is in excellent condition. With the exception of one unmailed letter which is partially sealed, each piece of correspondence is meticulously unfolded and placed under clear plastic in a large 12" x 18" album, no more than two letters per page. The paper is well-preserved and not brittle.
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