Postcard from Warsaw, Poland, Sent Undercover to Lisbon, Portugal

Authors

Object ID

2014.1.274

Object Name

Postcard

Date

2-20-1942

Files

Content Warning

The Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection consists of images, documents, and artifacts related to the Holocaust. The collection contains materials that depict a number of topics that may be difficult for viewers to engage with, including: antisemitic descriptions, caricatures, and representation of Jewish people; Nazi imagery and ideology; descriptions and images of German ghettos; graphic images of the violence of the Holocaust; and the creation of the State of Israel. For more information, see our policy page.

Description

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 destination 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.

Dimensions

3 3/4 x 5 3/4"

Keywords

Warsaw, Undercover, Stamps, Portugal, Lisbon, Reich seal

Subcollection

Rescue, Undercover

Recommended Citation

"Postcard from Warsaw, Poland, Sent Undercover to Lisbon, Portugal" (1942). Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection. 2014.1.274.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/bulmash/533

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Public Domain Mark.