As the Einsatzgruppen continued to blaze a trail of murder through the Baltic states, Ukraine and the Soviet Union, Reinhard Heydrich officiated at the Wannsee Conference in January, 1942, where plans were discussed for the systematic extermination of all the Jews of Europe in all of the countries conquered by Germany. Entire Jewish communities were to be liquidated. Concentration camps, initially used to incarcerate political prisoners, became extermination centers for mass murder in gas chambers, especially after Heydrich’s assassination. While there were many concentration camps, the major extermination centers were Auschwitz, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, Bergen-Belsen and Treblinka. Thus Jews were to be methodically killed with poison gas, or utilized as slave labor to be worked to death in war- related industries for the Reich.
This collection includes many examples of concentration and internment camp mail (including Romanian and Croatian camps as well as French internment camps) used during the Third Reich; several Auschwitz Briefaktion Postcards; and a program of the Bermuda Conference with a copy of a letter written by Rabbi Stephen Wise.
--Michael D. Bulmash, K1966
Browse the Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection.
-
Spanish Falangista Propaganda Poster and Ration Coupons
2014.1.449
Front: Drawing of a man in green militry uniform sweeping away Bolshevik, Jewish and Masonic symbols and people.
Back: Coupons for different rations.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: The Falangistas, under General Francisco Franco, having won the Spanish Civil War in the late 30s, allied themselves with Nazi Germany. A hand silk screened artwork of political and military propaganda, this depicts the giant Falangista soldier against the backdrop of the Spanish flag, sweeping away his opponents: the Freemasons (compass and t-square), the Jews (symbolized by the financier in top hat), the Communists and Bolshevists (symbolized by the red star and the hammer and sickle), the intellectuals (professor with unhinged spectacles), and the F.A.I. (Federacion Anarquista Iberica or Iberian Anarchist Federation). The reverse of the poster consists of ten ration coupons, each displaying the Falangist symbol (a phalanx of arrows), each used for scarce wartime commodities (sugar, corn, bread, etc.). These coupons were part of the great Falangist drive of 1942. (Probably a Contemporary Copy)
-
Official Cover from Reichkommisar of Occupied Ukraine, Rowno
2019.2.96
Envelope with blue postage stamp of Hitler on right side, stamp with large "R" printed in red and "Rowno (Wolhynien) 406" printed in black ink.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Cover is franked is occupational overprinted stamp used for occupied Ukraine. The Reichkommisariat Ukraine was the civilian occupation regime, administered at this time by Erich Koch, with control over both Gestapo and police. Its capital was the city of Rovno. Einsatzgruppen C and D were both active in the Reichkommissariat Ukraine. Koch was particularly brutal, and was found guilty of war crimes, including the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Poles and Jews.
-
Envelope from Zhytomyr, Ukraine
2014.1.212
Front: A tan envelope with typewritten address, four postage stamps of Adolf Hitler in pink, blue, purple and green, one red and four black hand stamps.Back: Several pencil markings.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: During World War II, Zhytomyr was occupied by the Germans from July 1941 to December 1943. It was the site of Himmler's Ukrainian headquarters. It was also, as Wendy Lower describes, "a laboratory for... resettlement activists" working towards the elimination of all Jews to facilitate colonization of the East. Tens of thousands of Jewish men, women, and children were murdered by both stationary and mobile police units, indigenous auxiliaries, and SD and SS personnel by the end of 1942.
-
Postcard from Liepaja to Riga, Latvia
2014.1.227
Front: A photograph of a woman sitting in the forest. Back: A brief letter on the left, and a mailing address and two Hindenburg stamps on the right.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Liepaja Postcard addressed to Riga. January 8, 1942. Correct rate 6Rpf Hindenburg stamps of German Reich, which were no longer valid in Germany, were in use in the early German occupation of Ostland, because of insufficiency of Ostland overprinted stamps of Hitler. The infamous Liepaja massacres -- nass executions of Latvian Jews by the combined forces of Einsatzgruppen A, Order Police, and Latvian military -- occurred in 1941. The largest massacre of 2731 Jews occurred on December 15 and 17, a week before Christmas and three weeks before this postcard was written.
-
Document from the Jewish Labor Central
2015.2.161
Tan paper with printed text in German and Czech, includes printed text and lines, filled in with tyepwritten information, with signature and black hand stamp in bottom left.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: One sided preprinted document in both German and Czech from Jewish Labor Central (headquarters) and the Jewish Cultural Community. Document grants permission to a Jewish Rudolf Seidler to skip public snow shoveling because of ill-health.
-
Notice to Appear for Labor
2014.1.204
Front: Tan postcard with black printed postcard lines. Includes writing in black ink, an orange postage stamp and several black hand stamps.Back: White background with black printed text and dotted lines. Includes writing in black cursive ink and a purple hand stamp.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: A special warning card printed by the German Army printing office and used in occupied Pleskau (Pskov) for local official mail. The German Labor Service Board (Arbeitsamt) usually used these cards as a first warning notice for the named individual to come to German officials for labor in either occupied territories or in Germany, where they would be known as Ostarbeiters. Card franked with German local occupation issue in 1942.
-
Postcard from Brcko with USTASE Insignia
2015.2.37
Front: Tan postcard with message written in green ink. Hand stamp with name of sender in black on bottom right corner. Back: Teal printed postcard lines, with printed stamp and border on the right side. Next to printed stamp is a pasted purple stamp. Two black circular handstamps, one between the printed and pasted stamps, and one lower on the border. Address written on printed green lines in green ink.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Postcard from Brcko (1942) with Ustase insignia. The Independent State of Croatia was a fascist puppet state ruled by the Usstase under the leadership of Ante Pavlic, subsequent to the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Nazis in April, 1941. Actions against Jews commenced immediately. Leaders of the Catholic Church joined the anti-Semitic propaganda. In August 1941 concentration camps were established, including Jasenovac and Stara Gradiska for women and children. It has been estimated that as many as 100,000 people were murdered in Jasenovac concentration camps by the end of the war, including Jews, Roma, Croats and Serbs.
-
Stock Certificate for Degussa and Dessauer (1000 Reichsmark)
2019.2.10
Certificate, detailed markings within pink center and brown border inside a plain white border, "Reichsmark 1000.-" printed in top right corner.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: By 1942, the Jews of Europe were marked for total extermination, and by 1942, when these stock certificates were issued, Zyklon B had become the preferred means of industrial scale murder in the Third Reich. Ultimately more than one million people were murdered in gas chambers at extermination centers such as Auschwitz and Majdanek through the Nazi use of canisters of Zyklon B. Death from dropping crystals of Zyklon B down openings in the gas-chamber room was terrifying, painful and agonizingly slow, and was visited on men, women, and children. The canisters themselves- the Zyklon B packaging system- were developed by Bruno Tesch and Walter Heerdt of Degusa, a German specialty chemical firm. Degusa had already purchased, Degesch the company that developed the hydrogen cyanide-based formula of Zyklon in 1922 for use as a pesticide. Degusa thus owned the chemical formula and the packaging system for Zyklon B. By the year of these stock certificates [2019.2.10 and 2019.2.11] the Nazis, through a demonic matrix of major German industrial firms, were able to achieve the ultimate rationalization of the processes underlying the mass production of death: Dessauer produced and manufactured Zyklon B; Degussa owned the formula; Degesch provided the labels and canisters; Tesch and Stabenow (Testa) distributed Zyklon B for Degesch to the SS for its use in concentration camps; industrial conglomerate I.G. Farben, whose massive facilities at Auschwitz employed slave labor, controlled more than 40 percent of Degesch; and Topf and Sohne made the crematoria and its ventilation system. Bruno Tesch’s role in selling the Zyklon B to the SS with the certain knowledge of its use in murdering humans cost him his life: he was tried for his crimes in executed in 1946.
-
Palestine (Jerusalem) Identification Card
2015.2.64
Front: Tan paper initially folded in half. Purple stamp in lower middle saying that posession of the card does not equate to Palestinian citizenship with back printed text beneath. Right side has titles printed in black, the backs of two staples, and a rectangular hand stamp towards the bottom from the Jerusalem District. Back: Printed title and questions in black, with information written in with black cursive. Left side has a black and white photograph of a woman with dark hair pulled back and wearing plaid blouse, with a rectangular purple stamp over it. Beneath is a signature in Hebrew.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Card signed in Hebrew during the British Mandate.
-
Envelope from Lutsk during German Occupation
2014.1.252
Front: A tan envelope with blue and green postage stamps of Adolf Hitler. Includes writing in black ink, two black hand stamps, and a red and white sticker.Back: Includes a black hand stamp.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: German occupation cover from Lutsk in Ukraine, 1942.
-
Censored Envelope from Smederevo to Beograd, Yugoslavia
2014.1.245
A blue envelope with purple band black hand stamps and a grey postage stamp. Includes writing in black ink.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Censored by military censorship in Belgrad.
-
Day of German Police Commemorative Postcard
2012.1.451
White postcard with an illustration of two men in SS uniforms. Titled, "Die Polizei im Fronteinsatz." Includes a message written in pencil.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Third Reich postcard produced for the 1942 Day of German Police and shows a German combat policeman and a Waffen-SS man between police and Waffen-SS insignia. This postcard essentially celebrates Nazi SS and Order Police accomplishments in the "East" after the 1939 invasion of Poland, including the murder of Jews and partisans.
-
Postcard from Warsaw, Poland, Sent Undercover to Lisbon, Portugal
2014.1.274
Front: A white postcard with black printed postcard lines and typewritten address. Includes a pink pasted stamp of Adolf Hitler, as well as several red, purple and black hand stamps.Back: Typewritten message with signature in black ink.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Communicating between enemy-occupied territories and allied nations was made extremely difficult during World War II. Any communication with enemy countries was expressly forbidden by Germany in 1940 and could be labeled high treason, resulting in the death penalty. Yet friends and family were desperate to maintain contact with one another. Similarly, Jewish organizations, resistance groups and governments-in-exile took risks by using undercover addresses in neutral countries, which did not indicate the true destination of the correspondence. For example, a common means of sending mail from Nazi-occupied areas to loved ones in Great Britain was to use the Thomas Cook office in Lisbon, which used the undercover address of POB 506 for mail to be forwarded to the Thomas Cook office in Great Britain and redirected with a label of the final destination. Lisbon's status as a neutral country made it a choice deestination for many undercover addresses; for example, the Dutch Air Force, Polish Red Cross, and Alfred Schwarzbaum of Lausanne Switzerland, who carried out Jewish relief services as well as secret support for the Jewish underground in Poland.
-
Polish Government in Exile Stamp on Censored Envelope Sent from Polish Naval Agency 12 from Destroyer 'Burza'
2014.1.244
Front: A brown envelope with eight postage stamps of varying colors, subjects and sizes arranged around the address, which is written in black ink. Includes several black hand stamps and intersecting blue lines.Back: Return address written in black ink. Includes a piece of white tape and blue intersecting lines, as well as a red hand stamp.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: The Burza was one of three Polish Naval destroyers that escaped to Great Britain after Poland was invaded by Germany on September 1, 1939. The Burza saw action in the Atlantic during World War II.
-
Letter to Mother from Son on Warfront:“the Jews have everything”
2014.1.269
Front: White paper with message written in greyish ink.Back: Continuation of letter with a signature on the bottom.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Dear Mother!I just find the time to write a letter to you. We are still appointed where partisans and cliques carry out their nefarious deeds. The Russian tries to continue to fight in the back of the front. We push against with all rigor. One can not trust anybody. I talked with a Ukrainian and an ethnic German. 6,500 Jews had been killed in one day. They say that there are no more living Jews in occupied Russia. The people here in the Ukraine lived poorer than the poorest in Germany. Only the Jews had everything. The cliques have levelled complete villages to the ground. Just we alone found 120 killed in one village at Lemberg. Russia is terrifying. Up to 10 people live in a sinkhole, it is worse than a German pigpen. It is normal in Russia. These people are not human, but less than animals. One should exterminate them. Russia is dirt, misery, and mud and all the Russians are dirt and cattle. They live as pigs, eat like pigs and kill like beasts. They even kill little children, babies. Mother, if I would write down everything, you immediately would lose your belief in God. No human on earth can be as brutal as the Russian. They even eat and deal with human flesh. I saw this with my own eyes as humans from villages had been gutted! Dear mother, don't be worried anyway. We have everything under control and soon we will accomplish to release these poor humans and to exterminate the so called Soviet paradise to the last man. Write to father and Kurt that I am well and that they shouldn't be worried. I often think of you and our beloved Fatherland and soon, very soon I will be with you all again. Heil Hitler my Mother!Yours, Josef.
-
Envelope from Kamianets-Podilskyi, Ukraine
2014.1.232
Front: A tan envelope with writing in black ink. Includes a blue X across the envelope, as well as a pink postage stamp of Adolf Hitler, and blue and black hand stamps.Back: Writing in black ink.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Before Babi Yar there was Kamianets-Podilskyi. Over a two day period in August 1941 almost 24,000 Jews were murdered near this city. Most of these Jews were Hungarian, and the remainder were Ukrainian. This cover was sent by the District Commissar's office seven months later.
-
Registered Nuremberg Cover Commemorating Hitler's 53rd Birthday, April 20, 1942
2019.2.209
Envelope with two purple postage stamps in top right corner, four round “Nürnberg” stamps in black ink, “Einschreiben” underlined in black print.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Special postmark depicts a Nazi Victory rune. The inscription reads “With the Fuhrer to Victory.” This postmark was used for one day only in only 6 German cities, including Nuremberg.
-
Seizure of Residence in Riga, Latvia Notice
2014.1.206
A "Beschlagnahmeverfügung" [seizure order] with eviction message printed beneath, and a green hand stamp with the Reichsadler. This notice was issued by SA Colonel and Riga-area Commissar Joachim Fust.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Notice meant to be stuck to a door or window of a private home, stating that the home has been seized and that it is prohibited for anyone to remove any furniture. Issued by the Riga area commissar, Fust, who was a ranking member of the S.A. 22 April 1942. In all probability meant for the seizure of Jewish property in Riga.
-
Stock Certificate for Degussa and Dessauer (1000 Reichsmark)
2019.2.11
Certificate, detailed markings within green center and orange border inside a plain white border, "RM 1000.-" printed in top right corner.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: By 1942, the Jews of Europe were marked for total extermination, and by 1942, when these stock certificates were issued, Zyklon B had become the preferred means of industrial scale murder in the Third Reich. Ultimately more than one million people were murdered in gas chambers at extermination centers such as Auschwitz and Majdanek through the Nazi use of canisters of Zyklon B. Death from dropping crystals of Zyklon B down openings in the gas-chamber room was terrifying, painful and agonizingly slow, and was visited on men, women, and children. The canisters themselves- the Zyklon B packaging system- were developed by Bruno Tesch and Walter Heerdt of Degussa, a German specialty chemical firm. Degussa had already purchased, Degesch the company that developed the hydrogen cyanide-based formula of Zyklon in 1922 for use as a pesticide. Degussa thus owned the chemical formula and the packaging system for Zyklon B. By the year of these stock certificates [2019.2.10 and 2019.2.11] the Nazis, through a demonic matrix of major German industrial firms, were able to achieve the ultimate rationalization of the processes underlying the mass production of death: Dessauer produced and manufactured Zyklon B; Degussa owned the formula; Degesch provided the labels and canisters; Tesch and Stabenow (Testa) distributed Zyklon B for Degesch to the SS for its use in concentration camps; industrial conglomerate I.G. Farben, whose massive facilities at Auschwitz employed slave labor, controlled more than 40 percent of Degesch; and Topf and Sohne made the crematoria and its ventilation system. Bruno Tesch’s role in selling the Zyklon B to the SS with the certain knowledge of its use in murdering humans cost him his life: he was tried for his crimes in executed in 1946.
-
Envelope from Ukraine to Ministry of the Occupied Eastern Territories in Berlin
2014.1.267
Front: A tan envelope with typewritten address, red and green postage stamps of Adolf Hitler, black and purple hand stamps, and a red and white sticker.Back: A black hand stamp.
Registered cover mailed by Karl Deuchert, an administrative manager with Organization Todt in Einsatzgruppe Russland South, a military engineering group which utilized forced labor for its projects, including concentration camps inmates. It's zone of operation was in Southern Ukraine and Russia.
-
Reinhard Heydrich Assassins Reward Broadside
2019.2.354
Broadside titled “BEKANNTMACHUNG” at top of left side and “VYHLASKA” at top of right side, left half of broadside in German, right side of broadside in Czech, dated May 27, 1942.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: SS Obergruppenfuehrer Reinhard Heydrich, the Reichsprotektor in Bohemia and Moravia (Czechoslovakia); head of the Reich Security Main Office; Chairman of the infamous Wannsee Conference (which devised plans for implementation of the Final Solution); and the man responsible for the Einsatzgruppen; had been wounded in an assassination attempt by British trained Czech soldiers on May 27, 1942. Heydrich died one week later –on June 4th- from his wounds.
This rare broadside of “Bekanntmachung,” issued by Karl Hermann Frank just hours after the assassination attempt on Heydrich’s life, offers a reward of 10,000 kronen leading to the capture of the perpetrators. A state of civil emergency is declared with a curfew, along with the closure of restaurants, theaters, amusement parks, and public transportation. Anyone violating the curfew, providing assistance to the perpetrators, or failing to notify the authorities of the identity or whereabouts of the perpetrators, is to be shot along with their entire family.
Hitler ordered brutal reprisals following Heydrich’s death. Karl Hermann Frank carried out these reprisals against the entire village of Lidice, which was razed to the ground, its male residents executed, and its women and children deported to Ravensbruck where most were murdered. A similar massacre occurred in the village of Lezaky.
The assassins, Jan Kubis and Josef Valcik, evaded capture by committing suicide in cathedral in Prague where they had been hiding. Text in both German and Czech.
-
German Red Cross Letter
2015.2.160ab
Front: Tan paper with printed writing and red cross, and typewritten information.Back: Printed and typewritten information, with signature in bottom right, and red stamp.Front: Black printed text.Back: Black printed text.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: German Red Cross Deutsches Rotes Kreuz letter. British censorship stamp. 1942. Letter send from Gertrud "Sara" Senger of Berlin to Hans Liebenthal in Jerusalem. Gertrud Senger was murdered in the Holocaust.
-
Robert Bittner Pledge Document
2012.1.496
Tan document with title, "Nierderschrift über die Bereidigung des." Includes typewritten and printed information with two signatures.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: A document from 1942 wherein Robert Bittner takes an oath that in the name of God he will be dutiful to the Führer and the nation.
-
"Ausweis der Deutschen Volksliste" (Identification Card of the German People's List) for Hedwig Klopocki
2012.1.79
Small booklet titled "Ausweis der Deutschen Volksliste" with Nazi emblem on cover. Includes biographical information and a black and white photograph of Hedwig Klopocki.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: The Deutsche Volksliste (German People's List) was a Nazi institution whose purpose was the classification of inhabitants of German occupied territories -- in this case, Poland -- into categories of desirability according to criteria systematized by Heinrich Himmler.
-
Broadside Announcing Czechoslovakian Death Sentence for Siba Ladislav, Fousek Karel, Kosal Josef, and Krupicka Frantisek for Killing Reinhard Heydrich
2012.1.574
Red poster with Nazi eagle and Swastika on top. Includes two sections of text in German and Polish.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Rare broadside poster made of red-colored, very thin paper, Prague. The poster announced the shooting deaths of four men connected to the assassination of SS General and "Protector" of Czechoslovakia Reinhard Heydrich. Czech partisans trained by Britain's Special Operations Executive mortally wounded Heydrich in Prague on May 27, 1942, assaulting his automobile. The broadside noted the summary court martial of Prague had sentenced Siba Ladislav, Fousek Karel, Kosal Josef and Krupicka Frantisek to death by shooting on June 20 and 22, 1942, for their connections to the assassins.