During this period emigration of Jews from Germany and Austria was closed down even as anti-Semitism became more extreme. With the advent of World War II on September 1, 1939, Jews fell increasingly under Nazi control as more European territory was conquered. Jews were placed in ghettos under brutal and appalling living conditions: slave labor, starvation and disease were rife, and many Jews perished, or were eventually sent to killing centers. Major ghettos included Warsaw, Lodz, and Lublin, but there were as many as 1000 ghettos in all. The Gestapo and the SS became organs of terror. Opponents of the Nazis were sent to concentration camps, and many never emerged. The Nazis utilized the Einsatzgruppen, mobile killing units following the Wehrmacht into the Soviet Union, murdering Jews and other groups targeted for elimination. The Einsatzgruppen, along with their local minions, ultimately murdered 1,500,000 Jews.
--Michael D. Bulmash, K1966
This collection features: correspondence and representative covers from many ghettos—including smaller ones-- established under the Nazis; a rare stamp from the ghetto of Czestochowa (Tschenstochau) in Poland; ghetto scrip; a selection of undercover mail covers; and the passport of a woman who had been a passenger on the St.Louis in 1939.
Browse the Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection.
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Testimony Signed by Karl Hermann Frank
2012.1.376
White paper with printed and handwritten German. Includes three signatures on the bottom right including one from Karl Hermann Frank.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Karl Hermann Frank (1898-1946) was SS Obergruppenfuhrer and a prominent Sudeten German Nazi official in Czechoslovakia serving under Reich protector Reinhard Heydrich until the latter's assassination. Frank was instrumental in implementing Hitler's orders of revenge, which included the destruction of the Czech villages of Lidice and Lezaky, the murder of their male inhabitants, and the deportation of women and young adults to concentration camps. Frank was executed in 1946. Document signed twice by Frank, adding his title as deputy Gauleiter and his SS number, in which he swears: "I am German, of Aryan lineage..." he attests that he is not a Freemason nor member of any secret society, and vows his allegiance to the state.
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Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski
2012.1.393
Black and white photograph of a man in glasses in Nazi uniform.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski was highly regarded by Hitler for his brutality and improvisational skills. As SS general and general of the Waffen-SS assigned to the Russian front, Bach-Zelewski was a leader of the Einsatzgruppen, and was thus responsible for many atrocities on the eastern front in which he took a personal part. In October 1941, after 35,000 people had been executed in Riga, he proudly wrote "there is not a Jew left in Estonia." He actively participated in massacres of Jews in Minsk and Mogilev in Russia. Bach-Zelewski claimed to have told Himmler that the firing squads were having a deleterious effects on the assassins, after which Himmler consulted about other methods to murder Jews, leading to the focus on gas as a more industrial solution to the Jewish problem.
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Poland Occupation Coupons
2012.1.419abc
Blue coupons on serated paper, each titled, "Generalgouvernement." Each has an illustration of farmwork or livestock.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Coupons from occupied Poland, the General Government, which served as money for forced labor in the General Gouvernment.
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Oranienburg Lagergeld Money
2012.1.460
Piece of paer money with black background. Includes two illustrations of German officers and Nazi insignia. Titled, "Lagergeld des Konzentrationslagers Oranienburg" and worth 50 pfg.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: A fifty pfennig banknote issued by and used at the German concentration camp, Oranienburg, later commonly called Sachsenhausen. The note measures 5'' x 3 1/2'' and on both sides pictures the German eagle and Swastika device, two armed German soldiers facing center, and a strand of barbed wire. Sachsenhausen was used primarily for political prisoners and was the scene of a huge counterfeiting effort to undermine the British Pound (operation Bernhard).
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Ukraine Nazi Occupation 1942-1945 Banknote 50 Karbovanets
2019.2.115
Green banknote marked with "50 Fünfzig" red number "40-006583" in bottom right on front.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: These notes were in circulation for three years during the Nazi occupation of the Ukraine. The Reichskommissariat Ukraine issued notes in Karbovanets, pegged to the German Reichsmark, thus replacing the Russian ruble. This note would have been equivalent to 5 Reichsmarks. It depicts a miner.