The sender of the letter is probably the wife of Józef Karol Puchalski, a Białystok councillor and, from February 1919, acting mayor of Białystok. Józef Karol Puchalski was also a co-founder of the Credit Association of the City of Białystok. He lived with his family in a tenement house at 21 Świętojańska Street. He died suddenly in 1924. His wife Stanisława died in Kazakhstan, and his son Ryszard was murdered in Kozelsk in 1940. The addressees of the letter are Stanisław and Zofia Grall. Stanisław Grall was the manager of the City Plantations and the author of the project to rebuild the Planty Park. According to his granddaughter’s account, the Gralls lived on Podleśna Street in Białystok, so they were neighbours of the Puchalski family.
The circumstances of Stanisława Puchalska’s deportation are not known. The letter is dated by the author on 3 February 1940 and arrived in Białystok on 12 February 1941. A partly legible date stamp confirms that the letter was sent on 3 February, but the annual date is torn off. The author states in the letter that she has not received correspondence for almost 5 months. She must therefore have been in exile in the Pavlodar region since September 1939.
It seems that the annual date given in the letter is wrong and the letter was sent on 3 February 1941.