By staff
Title: Ghetto and Camp Currency, Correspondence and Related Artifacts, 1908-1945
Predominant Dates:1939 -- 1945
ID: RG-06/RG-06
Primary Creator: Gutkind, Jurek
Other Creators: Conversion Office for German Foreign Debts, Jonski, Jozef (1912-), Kasimir, Fidor, Medley, Jane, Veronika (Vera) Komlos (née Somogyi), (1901-1944), Jewish female, a resident of Budapest (-- 1944)
Extent: 0.0
Arrangement:
The arrangement scheme for the record group was imposed during processing in the absence of an original order. Materials are arranged by subject/creator, then by the identifier, as assigned by the processor.
Record group is comprised of seven collections: 1. Collection of ghetto and camp money; 2. Numismatic collection; 3. Collection of camp and ghetto correspondence; 4. Eva Beckman collection; 5. Collection of Nazi Germany emigration bonds; 6. Collection of Nazi-counterfeited British bank notes; 7. Collection of Sonderkommando tags.
Subjects: Ghetto-issued monetary scripts, wartime, Lodz ghetto monetary receipts, Monetary signs, receipts, scripts as substitute matters of ghetto money, wartime, Monetary signs and receipts in the Lodz Ghetto, 1940 -- 1944, Monetary surrogates in term of scripts, receipts, ghetto paper money issued in Theresiensdatd ghetto, Paper money and coins, Lodz ghetto, Theresienstadt Ghetto issued banknotes, design and appearance, Theresienstadt ghetto monetary receipts
Forms of Material: A Westerbork camp coupon for 10 cent, 1944, Eine Mark (One Mark) bill, signed by Mordechaj Rumkowski, the Jewish Elder of Lodz Ghetto May 1940, Fifty Kronen bill, issued 1 January 1943, signed by Jacob Eidelstein, Der Alsteste Der Juden, Five Kronen bill, issued 1 January 1943, signed by Jacob Eidelstein, Der Alsteste Der Juden, Monetary surogate scripts issued by the Westerbork internment camp administration, 1944, One hundred Kronen bill, issued 1 January 1943, signed by Jacob Eidelstein, Der Alsteste Der Juden, One Kronen bill, issued 1 January 1943, signed by Jacob Eidelstein, Der Alsteste Der Juden, Ten Kronen bill, issued 1 January 1943, signed by Jacob Eidelstein, Der Alsteste Der Juden, Ten Mark coin, issued in 1943, authorized by Mordechaj Rumkowski, Jewish Elder of the Lodz Ghetto, Twenty Kronen bill, issued 1 January 1943, signed by Jacob Eidelstein, Der Alsteste Der Juden, Two Kronen bill, issued 1 January 1943, signed by Jacob Eidelstein, Der Alsteste Der Juden, Zwanzig Mark (Twenty) bill, signed by Mordechaj Rumkowski, Jewish Elder of the Lodz Ghetto May 1940, Zwei Mark (Two) bill, signed by Mordechaj Rumkowski, Jewish Elder of the Lodz Ghetto May 1940
Languages: German, Dutch;Flemish, Polish
The record group includes the banknotes of several European countries issued in the course of the 19th and 20th centuries; bonds issued by the Conversion Office for German Foreign Debts paid to German Jews for confiscated property; multiple artifacts related to ghetto and camp life, such as camp uniform, pottery from the Sobibor concentration camp, and Sonderkommando tags; and ghetto and camp correspondence, including letters and postcards written from the places of incarceration to relatives and friends. The camp correspondence collections includes Józef Jon ski’s correspondence from Dachau concentration camp, Jurek Gutkind’s corresponded with Anna Lipszyc from the Lublin prison and Buchenwald concentration camp, and there is a letter from Kasimir Fidor from Oranienburg concentration camp.
This record group is comprised of collections--specifically those related to ghetto and camp scripts, a German-introduced surrogate for monetary signs. First, for example, Lodz and Theresienstadt ghettos printed the scripts of their own, while the other ghettos circulated local or German currency. Contrarily, many Nazi-German concentration camps operated with the scripts of their own. This coupon-like currency, printed by the camp administrations, was good only for inter-camp use. Also, in ghettos and camps, cigarettes and food could often serve as a currency-like commodities. (Food rarely had any true monetary value and often emerged on the initiative of the Jewish administration in Lodz and Theresienstadt.)
A monetary sub-collection contains banknotes of Weimar Republic. Once issued in the year of 1923, they illustrate an iniquitousness of hyperinflation, overwhelming the Weimar Republic. The very denominations of one hundred thousand and one hundred million serve as a proof of economic and financial crisis.
Banknotes issued in German-occupied countries and territories also exhibit differences in the status of control and occupation. Comparing the following banknotes--Five Kroner of Denmark of 1942, Five Belgian Francs of 1943, and the Five Ukrainian Karbovantsiv of 1942--one can see that Denmark and Belgian retained a currency of their own, in terms of language and design. However, the Ukrainian banknotes, issued by the German authorities in Ukraine reflects the status of an occupied territory, controlled by German military and civil administration.
Ghetto-issued monetary scripts, wartime
Lodz ghetto monetary receipts
Monetary signs, receipts, scripts as substitute matters of ghetto money, wartime
Monetary signs and receipts in the Lodz Ghetto, 1940 -- 1944
Monetary surrogates in term of scripts, receipts, ghetto paper money issued in Theresiensdatd ghetto
Paper money and coins, Lodz ghetto
Theresienstadt Ghetto issued banknotes, design and appearance
Theresienstadt ghetto monetary receipts
Repository: Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust
Access Restrictions: No restrictions
Use Restrictions:
Copyrighted materials, credits to and references to the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust are required
Digital copies might be available upon request
Preferred Citation: RG-06, Ghetto and Camp Currency, Correspondence, and Related Artifacts. Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust Archive.
Processing Information: Materials are primarily described using the local descriptive standards of the LA Museum of the Holocaust.
This sub-collection contains documents, photographs and testimony related to Veronika (Vera) Komlos (née Somogyi). Veronika (Vera) was among a group of Hungarian-Jewish women forced to endure a 100-mile-plus foot march from Budapest to Austria near the end of the war to serve as Adolf Eichmann’s “defense line Jews.” Their last stop in Hungarian territory was at the border village of Hegyeshalom. It appears that the International Red Cross (IRC) played a role in giving these women a chance to send postcards to their families. Veronika’s postcard was addressed to her father, Jozsef Somogyi, on November 23, 1944 and postmarked November 27. She was never heard from again.
The subcollection contains the postcard, which became her last will and testament, as well as photographs of Vera and the Somogyi siblings, and the testimony of her daughter Gabriella Komlos Rosenfeld, from the book titled Counting My Blessings.
This is the final correspondence of Veronika (Vera) Komlos (née Somogyi), written during a 100-mile-plus foot march of Jewish Hungarian women deported from Budapest and sent to forced labor in Austria near the end of the war. Their last stop in Hungarian territory was at the border village of Hegyeshalom. It appears that the International Red Cross (IRC) played a role in giving these women the chance to send postcards to their families. Veronika’s postcard is dated November 23, 1944 and postmarked November 27. It is addressed to her father, Jozsef Somogyi, who survived the war.
Translation of the letter:
My dear parents!
I am writing from the Hegyeshalom on the Austrian border. Tomorrow we are crossing the border. I have lost track of Gyula. Do not cry dear Mother, take care of yourself, if l return I want to see you. I think that Jozsa, Agnes and Sandor also were taken. How is my Gabika? Where is she, if I could only know. If only Gyula could get back, to be near her and you. I do not think I will come back. My dear Parents, take care of yourselves, do not cry, you are only hurting yourselves. Take care of my baby, may God have mercy on us all. I kiss your blessed hands. Please place my Gabika with the Red Cross.
Yours Vera
November 23, 1944.
