Forced Labor Camps

Labor camps were established housing Ostarbeiter, or "eastern workers"- forcibly brought in from German occupied zones in, for example, Poland or the Ukraine as slave labor to fulfill demands created by Germany's war efforts. Taken to forced labor camps, they were compelled to produce goods or aid in construction for the war economy; upwards of 14 million people had been dragooned into a vast network of labor camps that stretched across Nazi occupied Europe. Death rates were high due to lack of adequate food, shelter, clothing, and medical supplies.

--Michael D. Bulmash, K1966

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"Meldungskarte" From Austrian Jewish Forced Labor Camp

2012.1.32

Tan card titled, "Meldungskarte" with black "Jude" stamp with various printed tables and information.
Postcard from Hungarian Camp

2014.1.129

Front: Tan postcard with green printed postcard lines, pencil writing, and a black hand stamp.Back: Handwritten message in pencil with a purple stamp.
Arbeitsbuch (Employment Record) for Frauz Willert

2019.2.81

Green booklet marked "Deutsches Reich" at top of cover, Nazi emblem in center, two holes punched in right side. Inside pages include yellow paper and green print. Pages 12-38 left blank.

[Related items: 2019.2.82 and 2019.2.83]

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Workbook ( Arbeitsbuch ) for foreigners of a Polish forced laborer, Franz Wullers.
Lehrbuch (Educational Manual) "Deutsch für Ausländer" (German for Foreigners)

2019.2.83

Book titled "Deutsch für Ausländer" in black print on worn, brown cover, 138 pages.

[Related items: 2019.2.81, 2019.2.82]

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Lehrbuch educational manual to help foreign laborers with German language.
Ukrainian Forced Labor Tag with Slip Case for Jews

2012.1.13ab

Aluminum identity tag marked Zs.Musz. From Ukrainian forced labor camp with green fabric slip case.
Romanian Forced Labor Identification for Jewish Worker

2014.1.163

Front: Tan cover with black printed text and symbol. Includes a purple hand stamp as well as the backs of several staples.Interior: Includes a photograph and biographical information for the worker, as well as calendars with various writing and stamps on them.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Issued to Rudolf Psalt with his photo and more than 200 handstamps in all probability for each day of work between April and December 1942.
Ostarbeiter Postcard

2014.1.164

Front: White postcard with black printed postcard lines and text. Includes writing in purple ink, as well as several purple, red and orange hand stamps.Back: Message written in purple ink on printed dotted lines.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Lida Worobej, employed as a slave laborer at Miele & Cie. in Bielefeld, Germany, is writing to her family in the Ukraine that she has received letters, and packages with pastries and socks from them, for which she was very grateful. She sends her regards to her friends, relatives and acquaintances back in her village of Iwankiw near Zhitomir. As a forced laborer, she lived in a Lager in Germany and worked at Miele, a company which exists to this day. While Ukrainians made up the the largest portion of slave laborers, there were Poles, Russians, and Belarusians as well. Germany had conscripted anywhere from 3 million to 8 million slave laborers. Most were young, typically under the age of 16. Many were 12-14 years of age when they were taken off to Germany. And by 1943, the age limit was dropped to 10. In the Ukraine, half of the Ostarbeiters were women or girls. Ostarbeiters from Reichskommissariat Ukraine were forced to wear a blue and white badge with "OST" (East) written on it.
Pleskau German Occupation Forced Labor Card

2014.1.205

Front: Bluish postcard with black printed postcard lines, writing in purple ink, an orange postage stamp and two black hand stamps.Back: White background with printed black text and dotted lines with information added in purple ink. Includes 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.
Foreign Worker "OST" [EAST] Patch with ID Card

2019.2.90ab

a: Identification card, photo of man wearing "OST" and "599" patches on right side, two fingerprints underneath, Nazi emblem stamped in purple over corner of photo. b: Cloth patch, "OST" printed in center in white, blue background with two white square borders.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Patch sewn to clothing of slave laborer Michael Harbus. Referred to as “ostarbeiters,” they were conscripted from German occupied territory in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, and deported to Germany to perform work. Michael Harbus had lived in the vicinity of the Kiev prior to the German occupation. Typically ostarbeiters lived in compounds and were not allowed to fraternize with Germans as they were regarded as subhuman.
Postcard from Jewish Intern in Bad-Schauenburg

2021.1.21

Signed and dated typed postcard with portable post office truck on front.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:

Bad Schauenburg was the site of a labor camp for Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution. The postcard is postmarked 2/4/1942 in Montreux, Switzerland. It is typed and signed by Joseph Heidingsfeld, a teacher, and himself a Jewish refugee in Switzerland who taught children in the refugee camps and hospitals in the Montreux area. Many thousands of Jews made their way to neutral Switzerland fleeing Nazi persecution. The Swiss government attempted to place limits on the number of Jewish refugees they permitted, ultimately collaborating with the Germans by getting them to affix the letter ‘J’ on their passports. This measure, initiated by Dr. Heinrich Rothmond of the Siss Ministry of Justice, would create the need for illegal means of entry.

Placing Jews in labor camps was perhaps an attempt by the “neutral” Swiss government to appease Germany on whose economy and good will they were dependent. Thousands of Jewish refugees admitted to Switzerland were placed in labor camps with unheated barracks and straw beds and required to work in factories making equipment for sale to the German army. Women cleaned the homes of Swiss officials: all in an apparent effort to discourage “non-Aryans” from entering Switzerland. On the other hand, Jewish refugees confined to these Swiss camps could be released if they could arrange for refugee status in other countries like neutral Portugal or South America. While it is known that ordinary Swiss citizens would lend support to Jewish immigrants, for many Jewish refugees at the end of their tether fleeing Nazi wrath, luck ran out at the border and too many were turnd back.
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.
Identification Card Issued for Hungarian Jew, Pal Rosenberger

2020.1.12

Paper with printed text in black as well as handwritten information and stamps in purple and red. Printed black text continues on opposite side but no additional information is written in table provided. Opposite side also stamped with purple ink.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:

ID card for Hungarian man, Pal Rosenberger, with large red-stamped ‘Zs’ (Zsido) identifying him as a Jew. After Adolf Eichmann’s arrival in Hungary to organize deportation of the Hungarian Jews, the Hungarian authorities, following the German example of 1938 requiring Jewish passports to be stamped with a large red ‘J’, required Jews to be identified with the ‘Z’ prominently stamped on their ID cards.
Postcard from Camp de Gurs to Jewish Intern in Bad-Schauenburg

2021.1.20

Postcard written in blue ink. Writing on front and back and multiple stamps on front.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:

Bad Schauenburg was the site of a labor camp for Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution. The nae of the postcard’s sender is illegible, but at the time of his mailing this postcard he had been interned in Camp de Gurs located in Southwestern France at the foot of the Pyrenes: the largest camp in the Vichy Unoccupied Zone. While initially holding Spanish Civil War refugees, Jewish enemy aliens mostly from Germany and Austria were interned here. Conditions were deplorable: inadequate food, shelter and water. Malnutrition and exposure contributed to epidemics of typhoid fever and dysentery which took many lives. Jews escaping from Nazi persecution as well as thousands of German Jews expelled from Baden and the Palatinate were interned here before being transported to the Drancy transit camp: a way station on the way to certain deportation to Auschwitz. The fate of the author of this postcard is unknown.

Many thousands of Jews made their way to neutral Switzerland fleeing Nazi persecution. The swiss government attempted to place limits on the number of Jewish refugees they permitted, ultimately to place limits on the number of Jewish refugees they permitted, ultimately collaborating with the Germans by getting them to affix the letter “J” on their passports. This measure, initiated by Dr. Heinrich Rothmond of the Swiss ministry of Justice, would create the need for illegal means of entry.

Placing Jews in labor camps was perhaps an attempt by the “neutral” Swiss government to appease Germany on whose economy and good will they were dependent. Thousands of Jewish refugees admitted to Switzerland were placed in labor camps with unheated barracks and straw beds and required to work in factories making equipment to be sold to the German army. Women cleaned the homes of Swiss officials: all in an apparent effort to discourage “non-Aryans” from entering Switzerland. To be sure, one cannot compare the inconveniences and indignities suffered by Jewish emigrants in Switzerland to the experience of Jews in German-run labor camps, or for that matter , in the French internment camp de Gurs. Yet the question might be asked: how should refugees who had lost everything but their lives -through no fault of their own -be treated? At the least, Jewish refugees confined to these camps could be released if they could arrange for refugee status in other countries like neutral Portugal or South America. And there are numerous reports of ordinary Swiss citizens helping ease Jewish suffering and assisting immigrants. The record shows, however, that while Switzerland absorbed up to 30,000 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi wrath, at leas that many were turned back at the borders.
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.

Identification for Katarzyna Kopala, a Polish Forced Laborer for HASAG in Leipzig, Germany

2016.1.05

Front: Photo of woman stapled on right, 'Nr. 01962' printed in orange rectangle on top left. Back: 'HASAG' logo on top left with 'WERK LEIPZIG' below.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Ms. Kopala's ID is stamped with 'P' for Pole, and she is shown in the picture with prominent 'P' on her uniform. HASAG, or Hugo Schneider AG, was an established metal goods manufacturer in Germany. From its beginnings as a manufacturer of lamps, it evolved into an infamous Nazi arms manufacturer with many factories across Europe using slave-labor from concentration camps such as Auschwitz and Buchenwald, as well as numerous ghettos in Poland. Many thousands of Jews and other prosoners perished working for HASAG under the most execrable conditions.

[Related items: 2016.1.06]

Court Summons, Lemberg (Lvov)

2014.1.268

Front: Tan postcard with black printed postcard lines. Includes typewritten address, a brown postage stamp of Adolf Hitler, black, red and purple hand stamps and various writing in purple and blue pencil.Back: Printed black text with several additions written in with black ink. Includes a red hand stamp.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Summons to review an inheritance case. However, the summons turned out to be undeliverable (aufruferfolglos, zuruck), and was returned and filed with other Lemberg World War II-period papers in the Lvov city court. Many of the original pre-war Lemberg (Lvov) residents were uprooted and no longer lived at their registered addresses after the Soviet, and later, Nazi occupations. Some ended up in Siberia or Central Asia. Others were in Nazi concentratin camps or killed by the Soviets, Nazis, and their collaborators, or in the Ukrainian-Polish Nationalistic strife, and yet others evacuated with the Soviets as the Nazis approached Lvov in the summer of 1941.

Order to All Men from 16 to 65 to Bring Personal Belongings and Await Further Instructions

2014.1.162

An order by a German Comisar presumably posted in Ukraine.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Ukranian Broadside from 1943 signed in type by a German "Comisar" ordering all men from 16 to 65 to the homes of the eldest bringing all personal belongings to await further orders. Inevitably these men were destined for Labor Camps in Poland and Germany. They often worked and starved to death.

Polish Forced Labor Camp "P"

2014.1.170

Purple and yellow diamond patch with a 'P' in the center.

Igazolványi Lap [Hungarian Jew's Identity Workbook]

2014.1.108

Front: Grey cover page with large red Z and smaller S. Includes several stamps and handwriting.Interior: Various printed charts filled out by hand.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Identity papers issued tin 1943 to a 46 year old Hungarian Jew, Bela Grunhut, similar to passsports issued to German Jews in that its cover is emblazoned with the Hungarian Zs for Zsido to identify her as Jewish. Contains pages that are stamped and signed.

Censored Dual Reply Postcardard from Slave Labor Camp in Nurnburg, Germany

2014.1.166

Front: White postcard with purple printed postcard lines. Includes text written in purple ink, and black and red hand stamps.Back: Printed purple lines.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: A "Gemeinschaftslager" cover. The card's content is censored and the recipient did not respond with their portion of the cover. Sent from the Deutsche Star Kugelhalter GMBH. Note the markings from the Keim and Company, which enslaved the prisoners.

Postcard from Prisoner in Neuruppin, Germany Slave Labor Camp

2014.1.168

Front: White postcard with printed purple postcard lines. Includes writing in blue ink, and black and purple hand stamps.Back: Message in blue ink written on printed purple lines.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Censored dual reply cover from a prisoner laborer in the forced labor camp of Neuruppin, Germany to Kiev in the Ukraine. Gemeinschaftslager cover. The card is censored with no response from the recipient.

Polish Arbeitsbuch [Employment Record Book]

2014.1.169

Front: Cover with Nazi eagle. Interior: Identification information about worker, signature, as well as blank boxes. Back: A signature in green.

Identification of Laborer in Todt Organisation

2014.1.171

Front: Grey page with black printed writing with information filled in in black ink. Includes a black and white photograph of a man, as well as several purple and black hand stamps.Interior: Various biographical information and charts.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Organization Todt was an engineering organization. From 1942-45 it was directrd by Albert Speer. These men were essentially slaves absorbed from conquered territories and used for a vast array of projects for the Nazi state.

German Occupied Bohemia Moravia Postcard - Words Numbered - From Nelli Mueller of Hagibor Forced Labor Camp to Mother-in-Law in Zebrak

2019.2.95

Postcard marked "POSTKARTE DOPISNICE" with a purple postage stamp of Hitler in the top right corner and a border of purple leaves,"Antwort pur anf Postkarten in deutscher Sprache" stamped on left side in black ink.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Nelli Mueller was a Jew who married a Czech ethnic German, Bohomil Mueller. For “violation” of the Nuremberg racial laws, she would be interned in Hagibor, a “mixed race” slave labor camp (Sonderlager) for spouses of mixed marriages. She was subsequently deported to Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1945, a few months before that camp was liberated. Her husband had been consigned to a series of labor camps, the last of which was an Organization Todt subcamp of Mittelbau-Dora, working in the mines producing the V1/V2 bombs. Nelli’s address on the postcard, Prag XI Schweringasse 1201, is a Gestapo office used to address mail for Hagibor inmates. Censored postcard hand stamped message that only German language can be used. A requirement of no more than 32 word messages was adhered to by enumerating each word.

Postcard from Freital, Germany Forced Labor Camp

2014.1.167

Front: Tan postcard with purple printed postcard lines. Includes text written in green ink and a black hand stamp.Back: Message written in green ink.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Postal card to a prisoner in the forced labor camp in Freital near Dresden, Germany, and was sent by a person in Bohemia, Moravia. Freital was the site of a forced labor camp consisting of about 4,000 to 5,000 prisoners working for the Saechsische Gusstalwerke (metal casings).