Object ID
2019.2.77
Object Name
Postcard
Date
4-16-1942
Files
Download Full Text (1.1 MB)
Description
Postcard stamped with "Philip Manes" in blue ink in upper left corner, includes red vertical line in center, red Nazi emblem stamped on left side, and red postage with man's face on right side. Back includes "Berlin am 26. 4 42" written in black ink in top center.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:
Philipp Manes was a German Jew from Berlin. He joined his father’s fur trading concern, married, and had four children. He served for Germany in WWI with distinction and won the Iron Cross.
After Kristallnacht Manes dissolved the fur business. He remained in Germany even as Nazi policy toward Jews became increasingly more restrictive. His four children, on the other hand, left the country.
In July 1942, Manes was notified that he and he wife Gertrud were to be deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto. At Theresienstadt, Manes was in charge of the ghetto orientation service, as well as the “Manes Group” which helped stage cultural, musical, and educational events. He wrote about his experiences and life in the ghetto generally, including accounts of the implacable transports. His diary of his experiences and observations of life in Theresienstadt has been published under the title As If It Were Life. Manes and his wife Gertrude were transported to Auschwitz from Theresienstadt, where they perished.
This postcard was written by Manes just months before he and Gertrud were deported to Theresienstadt. Helmut Bradt was a young, highly regarded professor of atomic physics from Berlin who was able to leave Germany with the help of Albert Einstein.
Dimensions
4 x 6"
Keywords
Philipp Manes, Helmut Bradt, Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, Albert Einstein
Subcollection
Ghettos
Recommended Citation
"Philipp Manes (1875-1944) Postcard from Berlin to Helmut Bradt in Zurich" (1942). Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection. 2019.2.77.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/bulmash/1454
Rights Statement
