For centuries Jews had been concentrated in specified areas of many European cities, segregated from the surrounding population. They were often required to wear identifying items such as yellow badges or pointed hats. The Third Reich built upon this religious and antisemitic impulse of European ghettoization, creating a ghetto system based on an eliminative racial ideology. Jews were no longer merely persecuted, terrorized, and denied their civil rights and loss of their ability to earn a living. Now they were to be herded like cattle into overcrowded enclosures typically surrounded by fences, walls and barbed wire, denied access to the basic necessities of life, exploited for their labor, and subject to starvation and disease: all as a preliminary step to what the Nazis considered the solution to the "Jewish problem." The specific form of this solution went through several iterations, from mass emigration to plans to ship Jews to Madagascar or to Siberia. Confining Jews to ghettos began in earnest after Germany invaded Poland in September 1939 and 3 million Jews fell into their laps. Reinhard Heydrich had proposed establishing ghettos near railway lines in large Polish towns, with Jews from the smaller villages as well making up the ghetto population, in the effort to centralize Jews for a presumptive "final solution." Jews would be employed as slave laborers. A counsel of Jewish elders - a Judenrat - would be formed to do the bidding of the German occupation administration, ensuring that initiatives and regulations would be carried out. Jewish "police" were to ensure maximal compliance with Nazi orders, including readying Jews for slave labor or deportation. Conditions were execrable: overcrowding, starvation, disease, and exposure to the elements created high death rates. While this scenario wasn't the much-vaunted Final Solution the Nazis struggled with, it served to contribute to Jewish death without Germans taking full responsibility; indeed, the self-serving Nazi idea that Jews were disease carriers would prove to be a self-fulfilling prophesy by virtue of their living conditions alone. After operation Barbarossa and the invasion of the Soviet Union, millions more Jews came under Nazi control, at which point deportation and extermination of Jews in all German-occupied territory became the most obvious and desirable solution to the Jewish problem. At Hermann Goering's request, Heydrich chaired the conference at the Wannsee villa in the Berlin suburbs in January 1942 to coordinate this decision with other Nazi elite. Adolf Eichmann sat quietly taking notes which would be euphemized and sanitized for public consumption.
--Michael D. Bulmash, K1966
Browse the Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection.
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Men with Star of David Patch and Brooms (Holocaust in Ukraine)
2015.2.192
Front: Black and white photograph showing a group of Jewish men holding brooms. Two men at the front wear large Star of David patches, and one man to the left looks directly into the camera.Back: Includes pencil markings and blue hand stamps.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:
Photograph of the Holocaust from Ukrainian Archives.
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Deutsches Reich Arbeitsbuch
2014.1.107
Cover reads 'Deutches Reich' at top, an eagle with swastika within a wreath symbol at center, and 'Arbeitsbuch' at bottom. Interior includes 38 pages and a last, unnumbered page. Pages 1-7 include many handstamps and handwriting. There are no markings from page 8-31. Text begins on page 32 and continues to end.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: The Arbeitsbuch grew out of a 1935 law requiring registration of work, and documentation of work history for German citizens-and only German citizens. Foreigners who worked in Germany carried an Arbeitsbuch fur Auslander which had a picture of the owner.
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Chaim Rumkowski Signing Document
2014.1.125
A black and white photograph of a man at a table signing a document with a woman next to him and several people lined up behind them.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Chaim Rumkowski, the controversial head of the Lodz Ghetto Judenrat, is thought by some to have aided and abetted the Nazis in liquidating the Ghetto. Others see him as a tragic figure who merely tried to delay the inevitable by employing as many people as possible -- including children -- in the workshop system he set up.
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Chaim Rumkowski Walking in Group
2014.1.126
A black and white photograph of a man walking with a group of men and boys. Some wear Star of David patches on their coats.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Chaim Rumkowski, the controversial head of the Lodz Ghetto Judenrat, is thought by some to have aided and abetted the Nazis in liquidating the Ghetto. Others see him as a tragic figure who merely tried to delay the inevitable by employing as many people as possible -- including children -- in the workshop system he set up.
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Postcard of the Exile of Pabianice's Jews
2014.1.310
Front: Photo of a line of Jewish people bundled in warm clothes and carrying their possessions on the side of a cobbled street, next to several buildings. Black Hebrew text in the lefthand corner with the year 1942 written out. Back: Blank postcard with printed black lines. On the upper righthand side some stamped on Hebrew letters.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:
Postcard, not postally used, with Hebrew writing, describing the expulsion of Pabianice’s Jewish population to the ghetto formed in the old district. More than 8,000 Jews were concentrated there. Pictured here is a procession of the exiled Pabianice Jews with whatever belongings they could carry to the ghetto in 1940.
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Warsaw Ghetto Policeman's Badge
2019.2.75ab
Front [a] and back [b] piece of badge. Front of badge is hexagon shape and includes blue Star Of David and border with text around border. Round back piece screws onto front hexagonal piece of badge.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:
Badge manufactured in Warsaw (maker’s mark “J. Olszewski GRAWER WARSZAWA”) worn by a member of a Jewish Service Police. These auxiliary police units were organized in the Jewish ghettos by local Judenrat councils under ultimate command of the occupying Germans. Jewish service police were conspicuous by their armbands, hats, and badges, but were allowed no firearms, and were used primarily to secure Jews- utilizing their batons- for deportation, or to guard food stores. Warsaw ghetto had the largest contingent of these policemen- as many as 2,500. They were both feared and detested by other ghetto residents for their willingness to exploit their charges for personal gain; for example, exchanging food for sexual favors. If they harbored any belief that they were different from other ghetto residents, however, the Nazis were to disabuse them of this illusion: they ultimately shared the same fate as the other ghetto victims.
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Litzmannstadt Ghetto Ration Card for Cigarettes
2019.2.79
Titled "Zigaretten-Karte" in bold, black print, tear along left side, numbered squares along left side, writing in blue ink, "Ch. Rumkowski" in black text in lower right corner.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Printed names of Chaim Rumkowski, head of the Ghetto Judenrat, at bottom.
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Zloczow Postcard
2015.2.109
Front: Tan postcard with message written in black cursive ink. Back: Green printed postcard lines with writing in black cursive ink. Includes a purple hand stamp on upper left, and identical printed and pasted green stamps of a man in profile facing left on the upper right corner.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:
Deutsches Reich 6pfg postcard with additional 6 pfg franking tied to ZLOCZOW cds and "Durch Judenrat Zloczow" violet cachet alongside. Germans occupied Zloczow in the Western Ukraine after Operation Barbarossa on July 2, 1941. Local Ukrainians welcomed the German army and collaborated in pogroms against the Jews. Jews that were not murdered were taken to slave labor camps. In August and November of 1942 several more waves of killing took place. The ghetto of Zloczow was established in early December of 1942, concentrating approximately 7500 to 9000 Jews - both residents of Zloczow as well as neighboring towns - in a very small area. The ghetto was eventually liquidated on April 2, 1943. Germans and Ukrainian helpers concentrated Jews in the local marketplace, transported them by trucks to a pre-prepared pit a few miles east where they were slaughtered by gunfire.
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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.
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Riga Ghetto Postal Cover
2016.1.27
Green with ‘Ghetto Verwaltung Riga, Ostland, Post Uberwachungsstelle, Nr. 1” printed in green at top left.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:
Postally-used cover sent from ”Ghetto Administration Riga Ostland.” Riga postmark, sent to the Police President at SiPO Headquarters, Libau. Libau was the German name for Liepaja in Western Latvia.
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Postcard from Kosow-Lacki Ghetto
2015.2.133
Front: Tan postcard with writing in black cursive ink.Back: Printed purple postcard lines with writing in black cursive ink. Includes black, red, and purple hand stamps, as well as some markings in grey and blue pencil, and a printed purple stamp depicting a building on the upper right corner.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Kosow-Lacki. 1942. General Government 30 pfg. postcard from a Ch. Cegvel at Kosow to A. Rudy, Paris, France. Three line violet "Postamt beim Judenrat in Kosow Kreis Sokolow." Message in Polish. Nazi censor markings alongside. Jews had lived in Kosow-Lacki since the end of the 18th century. With the Molotov-Ribentropp Pact, the Germans took Kosow from the Russians in September 1939. The latter had only occupied Kosow for one week. Jews had their property confiscated and were promptly forced into slave labor. A Judenrat was soon established along with an open ghetto. A number of Jews from Kosow were employed in erecting the death camp at Treblinka. In September 1942 with the Jews of Kosow concluding the Yom Kippur holiday, Nazis and Polish helpers encircled the ghetto and forced the residents to march on foot to Treblinka, where they were promptly exterminated.
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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.
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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 Belgrade.
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Arrest Warrant from Vilna Ghetto
2015.2.112
Tan paper with typewritten words and blanks, filled in with pencil. Includes other writing in gray and red pencil, pencil in signature on bottom right, and a purple stamp on bottom left.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:
One of four arrest warrants bearing Vilna (Vilnius: Lithuanian) Ghetto handstamp in violet and red. Of the more than 60,000 Jews living in Vilnius before the German occupation, 21,000 were murdered over the course of the summer of 1941 by German troops, Einsatzgruppen A, and their Lithuanian collaborators. The effort was to establish a ghetto to imprison all Jews of Vilna and suburbs in the old Jewish quarter of the city. The area was split into two ghettos, referred to as the Large and Small Ghettos, to implement the process of dehumanization, exploitation of the population for slave labor, and systematic extermination of all the Jewish residents. As in other ghettos created by the Nazis, conditions were intentionally overcrowded and unsanitary, with disease, hunger, and daily death as expectable outcomes. The Small Ghetto was liquidated by the end of October 1941, leaving approximately 20,000 Jews remaining in the Large Ghetto. Jacob Gens was appointed head of the ghetto administration. A former police chief, he set about establishing medical care, cultural and welfare systems for the Ghetto. Like Rumkowski in the Lodz Ghetto, he hoped that if Jews could prove themselves to be a productive workforce for the Nazis, then the ghetto's destruction would be delayed. Germans continued to murder ghetto Jews - typically the elderly and infirm - on a regular basis. Under Himmler's orders, deportations to concentration camps in Poland and slave labor camps began in the summer of 1943, along with mass shootings in the Ponary Forest. At the slave labor camp known as HKP, Wehrmacht Major Karl Plagge was heroically able to shield many of the Jewish workers from murder at the hands of the Nazis. The extraordinary privations notwithstanding, Vilna was known for its sustained cultural and intellectual life. It maintained a substantial library, ran theatrical productions, sports events, magazines, poetry readings, and more. Vilna Ghetto was also known for its underground partisan organization, the FPO, formed in 1942 and headed by Abba Kovner and Josef Glazman and Yitzhak Wittenberg; its motto was "We will not go like sheep to the slaughter," thus attempting to establish a means for Jewish self-defense. Ultimately they pursued a policy of sending members out to join partisan units in the forest.
[Related items: 2015.2.111, 2015.2.113, 2015.2.114]
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Postcard from Radomsko Ghetto: Anna Rozenbaum to Alfred Szwarcbaum in Switzerland
2015.2.120
Front: Tan postcard with writing in blue cursive ink. Back: Printed purple postcard lines with writing in blue cursive ink. Includes blue, purple and black hand stamps, and a printed purple stamp in upper right.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:
General Government 30 pfg cancelled Radomsko (District Radom) 3/7/1942 with two-line violet "Aeltestenrat Radomska Postabteilung" indicating the Jewish Elders of the ghetto, from Anna Rozenbaum to Alfred Szwarcbaum, the Polish benefactor who escaped to Lausanne, Switzerland and helped Jews. Written in Polish 2/271942. Radomsko was in the Lodz district of Poland but the Radom district of the General Government, and almost 40 percent of the population of 10,000 was Jewish. The ghetto - the second in Poland - was established soon after the Germans occupied the city in early September 1939, and incorporated Jews from surrounding towns. Many died from typhus epidemics, malnutrition, and the deplorable conditions rife in the Nazi ghetto system. In mid-October 1942, all of the Jews in the ghetto were deported to Treblinka. When the ghetto was re-opened in November to house Jews from neighboring towns, they too perished in Treblinka. Anna Rozenbaum did not survive the Holocaust.
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Theresienstadt Transport Card
2015.2.116
Front: Tan postcard with writing in black ink. Back: Printed black postcard lines with an embellished border and writing in black ink. Includes a black grid hand stamp with multiple date stamps inside it on left side. Several markings in red pencil.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Censored transport card to Trude Weinstein in Theresienstadt listing her transport number 161.
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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.
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Censored Theresienstadt Postcard
2012.1.336
Tan postcard with black printed postcard lines. Addressed in pencil to Dr. Klauber from Julie Lauber with message written in pencil.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:
Ms. Julie Klauber, imprisoned in Theresienstadt, attempts to send this postcard to her son Dr. Klauber in March 1942. The postcard lacks a postage stamp, is censored, directed through Prague Jewish Cultural Council (Judische Kultusgemeinde Prag.) with a large handstamped “Z” (Zid), pejorative for “Jew”.
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Postcard from Kielce Ghetto
2015.2.135
Front: Tan postcard with writing in black cursive ink.Back: Printed purple postcard lines with writing in black cursive ink. Includes red, purple and black hand stamps, pencil markings, and two pasted stamps, including one red stamp showing a building, and one purple stamp showing a church.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:
General Gouvernement 30 pfg. Postcard with additional 1z., from J. Raufman at Kielce to Alfred Szwarcbaum, Lausanne, Switzerland, showing violet boxed "FLUGPOST." Nazi censor markings, dated March 13, 1942. Kielce was settled by Jews in 1819. They were expelled in 1845. The ban was lifted in 1863 and the population increased dramatically, having numbered 18,000 by the 1930s. This figure represents approximately 33 percent of the inhabitants of Kielce. The Germans entered Kielce on September 4, 1939 and a Judenrat was established soon thereafter. The Jewish population of Kielce swelled with the influx of deportees from other areas, including 7,500 from Vienna in 1941. Two ghettos were established in April 1941. The "Aktions" commenced in August of 1942 with the deportation of 21,000 Jews to Treblinka and the slaughter of another 3,000 in Kielce. The remaining 16,000 Jews were placed in the smaller ghetto and worked as slave laborers in the munitions factories and labor camps. The Judenrat members were murdered on November 20, 1942.
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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.
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Litzmannstadt Ghetto ID Work Permit For Ita Mariem Kaltman
2014.1.116
Front: A photograph of Ita Mariem Kaltman with a purple handstamp on the left, and typed biographical information on the right, as well as the signature of Lódz supervisor Z. Goldine. Back: Typed and printed information, including the name of Hans Biebow, Chief of Nazi Administration in Lódz Ghetto. Further information: This pass was issued to Ita Mariem Kaltman, who lived at 16/38 Holz Street for her job as a trainee at the chemical laundry #57. This pass gave her permission to be out during curfew hours--presumably, the laundry was open through the night. Born June 10, 1931, Ita Kaltman died in the Ghetto.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:
An official ghetto ID and work card issued to a very young Ita Mariem Kaltman, born 10 June, 1933 in Lodz and living at 16/38 Holz Street for her job as a trainee at the chemical laundry #57 and has permission to be out during curfew hours (presumably the laundry was open through the night). Signature of Z. Goldweg (?) the supervisor at lower right. On the left side is her photo, along with an official Litzmannstadt Ghetto handstamp and signed Yadza (or Jadza) Kaltman, probably her Polish name, and signature in green ink below that. Verso has more details about her, "profession–trainee, gender–female, age at 1.1.1943...12 years. She started work 24.3.1942.” The remainder of the card contains a warning that she shouldn't lose the card and what to do if she does. The card was not transferable, and any self-made changes are forbidden and will be punished. The message is from Hans Biebow of the Ghetto management. Biebow was the administrator of Lodz and got rich by stealing almost all the possessions of the Jewish residents and paying them virtually nothing for their work. He sent most of the residents to their death in Auschwitz and escaped to Germany in 1945 but was recognized by a survivor and stood trial in 1947. He was found guilty and executed. According to the Yad Vashem Central Database of Shoah, Ita Kaltman perished in the Ghetto. It is worth noting that according to this database she was born in June of 1933, not 1931, thus young Ita possibly forged her age on the ID so that she would be able to work and possibly avoid deportation.
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Theresienstadt Transport Card
2015.2.117
Front: White postcard with writing in black ink. Some smudged writing on right side. Writing and postcard lines in black ink. Includes a black grid hand stamp on left side, with several date stamps inside of it, and pencil in purple and black around it. Writing in red on lower right side.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Censored postcard from Elsy Klein to Trude Weinstein, prisoner in Theresienstadt Ghetto, citing her transport number to the Ghetto.
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Postcard from Sosnowitz
2015.2.110
Front: Tan postcard with writing in blue cursive ink. Black stamp along the length of the bottom. Front: Red printed postcard lines with writing in black cursive ink. Includes a purple hand stamp on the lefthand side from the Council of the Elders of the Jewish Community in Sosnowitz, four black circular hand stamps on the righthand side, and several purple, red, and black numerical hand stamps along the bottom. One printed red stamp and pasted brown stamp in the upper righthand corner, and a blue pasted stamp on the lower lefthand corner. Some pencil markings in the bottom right corner.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:
Deutsche Reich 15 pfg censored postcard with additional 10 pfg tied Sosnowitz 4/7/1942. Three-line cachet citing the council of elders of the Jewish community in Sosnowitz. Sosnowitz had a substantial Jewish community prior to the German occupation. As the Germans resettled Jews from the smaller local communities, the Jewish population of Sosnowitz swelled to 45,000. The terror campaign against the Jews - shootings, mass executions, forced relocation, etc. - eventuated in the formation of the Ghetto. The establishment of the Judenrat, headed by Moishe Merin, a labor camp, followed. Merin headed the Central Office of the Jewish Council of Elders in upper Silesia, which represented approximately 45 communities. The population of the ghetto was culled periodically for labor and extermination, but the ghetto was finally closed in 1943 with the deportation of Jews to Auschwitz. An underground resistance was organized in Sosnowitz and staged an unsuccessful uprising against the Germans.
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Postcard from Izbica Ghetto
2015.2.143
Front: Tan card with writing in black cursive ink.Back: Black printed postcard lines with writing in black cursive. Includes a purple pasted stamp depicting a building, a black and purple hand stamps, and a long red stamp across the left side.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:
Postcard sent by Selme Greenbaum in Izbica to Helene Schloss in Goteborg, Sweden. "JUDENRAT IZBICA" in violet, message in German and red Nazi censor markings alongside. Izbica is a town in the Lublin district in Poland. The first Jewish families settled in the late 18th century and soon comprised over 90 percent of the population. Izbica was famous as a center for Hassidism. With the German occupation in 1939, Izbica was a transfer point for Jews from other towns in Western Poland, as well as Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia. 3000 Jews arrived in December of that year and a Judenrat was established in early 1940. SS Hauptscharfuhrer Kurt Engels, known for his pathological cruelty, was commandant of the Nazi command and enjoyed terrorizing the area, especially shooting Jews in the morning before breakfast. Most of the 6500 residents were exterminated at Belzec and Sobibor. Thomas Toivi Blatt, who had escaped the death camp at Sobibor, had been a resident of Izbica.
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Philipp Manes (1875-1944) Postcard from Berlin to Helmut Bradt in Zurich
2019.2.77
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.