Can someone please help me with a translation?

[Eric Queen]

I think it could be Serbian/Yugoslavian but am not sure.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you

[Komandir RKKA]

I suppose that is Yugoslav.
Zlatomir Vasich
1944 year Sechitz

[Albert]

Sehnitz (?). I guess a place somewhere....

[Eric Queen]

Thanks for your help with this. I appreciate it. I am perplexed also as to what (or where) Sechitz or Sehnitz is.

Any thoughts? Thanks again.

[Albert]

Thanks for your help with this. I appreciate it. I am perplexed also as to what (or where) Sechitz or Sehnitz is.

Any thoughts? Thanks again.

Well, there is an "N" in the word/ name. And if I remember my linguistics classes correctly, the Serbian "h", is more like a "dzh" sound, which would make it an unlikely transliteration from German, even though the "itz" ending makes it a possible German ending (even though of Slavic origin). "Tsch" would be more of a German possibility. So, long story short, I looked up Cеђниц, Sehnitz, Setschnitz and got zero hits. Phonetically, not much more would make sense to me, unless it is not a transliterated German place name. Not getting a hit in Serbian, I cross-checked Russian spelling options, сечниц, сежниц, and also got no hits. I do not know what it could be....

[Popsmoke2]

I believe it is Senitz. The "h" letter in my opinion is a soft-sign and the location is Szenice in Hungarian, which is in Slovakia.

[Albert]

I believe it is Senitz. The "h" letter in my opinion is a soft-sign and the location is Szenice in Hungarian, which is in Slovakia.

Hungarian and Slovak use the Latin alphabet that does not have soft or hard signs. Soft/ hard signs don't come after vowels, plus, modern Serbian does not use those signs. Russian does, but again only after consonants, and this is not written in Russian.

[Popsmoke2]

I was having a hard time with the h in Sehnitz. You can see the "ch" in his last name Vasich is clearly drawn as a "ch". Is it a "dje" without the little cross bar at the top? Sedjnitz? Segnitz, Germany?

[Albert]

I was having a hard time with the h in Sehnitz. You can see the "ch" in his last name Vasich is clearly drawn as a "ch". Is it a "dje" without the little cross bar at the top? Sedjnitz? Segnitz, Germany?

It looks like a "Ђ" in both cases; the former like an upper case "Ђ", and the latter like a lower case "ђ"?
There would be no Sedjnitz in Germany, there is a Segnitz but in the West, and it would have been spelled with a "r". There is a Sebnitz, but that would have been a hell of a misshapen "b", coincidentally looking exactly like a lower case "ђ"... Who knows where he was and what he did. In 1944, Yugoslavia was still to a certain degree occupied, could have very well been a forced laborer anywhere, not necessarily a partisan.

Took another look and the closest thing was Sedlnitz, modern day Sedlnice in Czech Republic. But who would transliterate "dl" to "ђ", but then again, who knows...

[Marcel Banziger]

One point of interest: many soldiers couldn't write. I see mistakes in names on fieldpost letters where a fellow soldier wrote the letter home f.e. so surnames where wrong.
I mean, even Soviet military clerks made mistakes with names of soldiers on official documents and also places in official award documents. I have learned one thing when collecting Soviet items; that is don't take the written names (both people but also places) too literally. In many cases these can have spelling errors. Even more with so many people from such a vast territory and from so many different cultures and languages (from Minsk to Vladivostok and from Murmansk to Dusjanbe).

So don't take the carved placename too literally. There could be room for variations due to the name being written wrong.

[Komandir RKKA]

Thanks for your help with this. I appreciate it. I am perplexed also as to what (or where) Sechitz or Sehnitz is.

Any thoughts? Thanks again.

Yes, I lost the "n" letter.
It is Sechnitz - river somewhere close to San river.

[Albert]

Yes, I lost the "n" letter.
It is Sechnitz - river somewhere close to San river.

Can't get a hit on Google. Can you please share the Polish and/ or Ukrainian spelling. Perhaps a link too. It would be odd he'd use the name of a river rather than a town.

Misspelling is always an option....

[Eric Queen]

Again my thanks to all for your efforts with this. Quite a mystery indeed.

I wanted to show the front of the case and share my (wild) hunch as to what I thought it could be when I bought it.

At first glance it looks kind of like a goofy fantasy piece (and it very well could be)

[Eric Queen]

I thought there was a (long shot) that it could somehow be related to Yugoslavian paratroopers. In 1939/40 a small class (consisting mostly of pilots and observers) were trained as paratroopers. Here is an original group photo of the class. The badge circled in red is what I believe to be a design of the paratrooper badge which, by all accounts, was never produced.

[Eric Queen]

I have read in several places that after the invasion in April 1941 many of these pilots (also trained as paratroopers) were in exile in Egypt flying with the RAF. It was during this time that some had make shift paratrooper badges made locally using the pilots badge (basically adding a parachute to it).

** This may or may not be true. I have no photographic evidence to support it.

This is what some say those badges looked like (it is not mine)