Justin Gordon’s Holocaust Postal History Receives a Warm Welcome

In a well-attended and successful launch party, philatelist and postal historian Justin Gordon presented his new book, Holocaust Postal History: Harrowing Journeys Revealed through the Letters and Cards of the Victims, to the public on Sunday, November 20, 2016, at synagogue Kehilat Chovevei Tzion in Skokie.

A Holocaust survivor who recently wrote his autobiography addresses author Justin Gordon and the speakers’ panel.
A Holocaust survivor who recently wrote his autobiography addresses author Justin Gordon and the speakers’ panel.

An audience of over 100 people gathered to celebrate the occasion. Attendees included Gordon’s family, friends, neighbors, business colleagues, patients, synagogue members, Holocaust survivors and their children, and at least one World War II veteran. People lined up to purchase more than 100 books, which Gordon signed that evening.

Special guest and radio personality Regine Schlesinger officially opened the evening with a recounting of her experience growing up as a child of Holocaust survivors. She emphasized the need for continued study and writing on the topic, especially as survivors age and pass away. Following Schlesinger’s comments, Rabbi Shaanan Gelman addressed the crowd, weaving an eloquent narrative around the story of a man who escaped Chelmno and returned to his rabbi’s house to relate the unthinkable truth about what was happening to the Jews of Europe. Gordon’s close friend and collaborator Howard Weiss then spoke to the hard work, dedication, and labor of love that the book represents, as well as to the poignancy of holding an actual cover from Gordon’s collection, most likely this person’s last communication and the only remnant of his or her existence.

Finally, Gordon addressed the audience regarding the book itself, the culmination of years of collecting, research, and writing. He relayed how his uncle led him to stamp collecting, how his cantor—a survivor of Auschwitz—introduced him to the Holocaust, and how, years later, he’d discovered a convergence of these two areas in Holocaust philately. While his initial motivation for collecting was in the covers themselves and their stamps and markings, Gordon eventually realized that each cover represented a personal journey, a story to be told. His book relates these tales of life and death. Gordon related that his newest project involves collecting covers from each of the members of the first transport to Auschwitz.

Author Justin Gordon address the audience, sharing his personal history and reasons for writing Holocaust Postal History.
Author Justin Gordon address the audience, sharing his personal history and reasons for writing Holocaust Postal History.

Following the speeches, Schlesinger opened up time for questions and comments from the audience. One attendee had served in the US troops at the Battle of the Bulge and mentioned that very few French Jews had survived the Nazis in World War II. An elderly Holocaust survivor related that he had just completed his autobiography. Another attendee also asked if the postcards and envelopes in the book could be viewed in a museum. Gordon responded that they are in his private collection and that he would be happy to display it and speak to groups about his research.

The event was full of positive energy, and the support for Holocaust Postal History and its author were deeply felt. In all, it was a wonderful beginning to introduce this special book.

 

 

Highlights from the Event 

Author Justin Gordon discusses his book Holocaust Postal History with an attendee.
Author Justin Gordon discusses his book Holocaust Postal History with an attendee.

 

Author Justin Gordon signs a copy of Holocaust Postal History.
Author Justin Gordon signs a copy of Holocaust Postal History.

 

Howard Weiss, Regine Schlesinger, and Justin Gordon listen as Rabbi Shaanan Gelman delivers his remarks on the horrors of the Holocaust.
Howard Weiss, Regine Schlesinger, and Justin Gordon listen as Rabbi Shaanan Gelman delivers his remarks on the horrors of the Holocaust.

 

Anti-Semitic Laws Represented in the Postal System

Hitler was elected chancellor in January 1933, and as he consolidated his power and reshaped the Reich, his handiwork became apparent in the postal system. His new laws, intended Aryanize the future of Germany, singled out the Jews. There are numerous effects of Hitler’s anti-Semitic laws on the mail.

Article One of the Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of the People and the State

After a fire in the Reichstag (the German Parliament building), the Nazis passed Article One of the Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of the People and the State on February 28, 1933. The decree established the Schutzhaft (protective custody), giving the Nazis unlimited power to arrest and detain their opponents without cause, supposedly to guard them from the “wrath of the general public.” These Schutzhäftlinge (protective prisoners) were then sent to one of the newly established concentration camps. However, this “protective custody” did not shield prisoners from the Nazis themselves. from the arbitrary and sadistic abuses of their captors.

Mail coming from the camps such as Auschwitz, Dachau, and Buchenwald often includes the term Schutzhäftlinge to refer to someone who is being held in custody. I address this further in my article “A Study in Philatelic Usage of the Term Schutzhaft (Protective Custody)” (Israel Philatelist, 58(6): 220–223).

 

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A Study in Philatelic Usage
of the Term Schutzhaft

The term Schutzhaft (protective custody) has fascinated me since I began to collect mail from the Holocaust. It is evident from the preprinted or handwritten return addresses on concentration camp mail that this word is used in several different ways. This term, as well as the other mailing instructions, convey the impression that the inmate is being held for his or her own protection and that all his needs will be met at the camp.

Most of the camp postal regulations read as follows:

  1. Each protective prisoner can receive and send to relatives two letters or two cards a month. Letters to prisoners are to be legible and written in ink and can contain 15 lines on one side of normal paper. Only 5 postal stamps of 12 pfg. are permitted in one letter. Anything else is prohibited and will be sequestered. Post cards have to have 10 lines. Picture postcards are not permitted.
  2. Sending money is permitted.
  3. Newspapers are permitted and can be received at the camp.
  4. Packages are not permitted because prisoners can buy everything in the camp.
  5. Applications for dismissal from the camp to the camp administration are in vain.
  6. Permission for conversations or visits with prisoners are basically not permitted.

However, “protective custody” did not protect the inmate from possible harm. Rather, this is just one of many Nazi euphemisms, “expression[s] intended to be less offensive, disturbing, or troubling than the word or phrase [they] replace[s].”

Nazi euphemisms played an important role in the dehumanizing process of the Holocaust. Ultimately, the “Jewish problem” was solved through the “Final Solution,” a euphemism for extermination. Terms such as euthanasia and mercy death cloaked the murders of the handicapped (who were designated unworthy of life). Obviously these murders were committed for racial reasons—and not to ease suffering. Special treatment in euthanasia installations meant killing by poison gas.

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The End

The war ended, and Europe was in a shambles. Despite the fact that the Jews were liberated by the Allied armies, they had no homes to return to and so were housed in displaced persons camps, operated by the United Nations, which were scattered through Europe. From the safety of the camps, the Jews of Europe began sending letters to the United Nations, requesting the establishment of a Jewish state.

This cover was from a displaced persons camp to Palestine.

Contained in the cover was a letter, pictured below, addressed to Trygve Lie, Secretary-General of the UN. The letter requests that the homeless Jews scattered over Europe be given a nation to call their own.

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Dabrowa

The ghetto in Dabrowa in southern Poland was established in the poorest section of town in November 1939.  It remained an open ghetto until August 1942, when liquidation began.

I showed this postcard during my talk at AMREIPEX in Chicago 1986, and after the talk, a gentleman commented that he never heard from his family after he was sent to a camp at the age of 13. However, when he saw this postcard, he recognized that his sister had written it. The next day I brought the card and presented it to him as a gift.

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Sokolow Podlaski

In the second half of September 1939, a Red Army unit occupied the Polish town of Sokolow Podlaski, but after a week they with drew according to the Molotov-Ribentrop Pact. Many Jewish youngsters left town with the retreating Red Army. Soon after, the German Wehrmacht marched into town. On the first days of the German occupation Jewish males were kidnapped for slave labor and abuse.

An open ghetto was established in two streets around the main synagogue. Jews, newly evicted from their homes, were forced to move to those two streets. Traffic in and out of the ghetto was permitted, and the Jews could buy products from nearby Polish farmers.

However, the situation deteriorated. On the evening of Yom Kippur 5703 (10 October, 1942) the Sokolow Ghetto was liquidated. The Jews were herded to the market square and transported in sealed cattlecars directly to nearby Treblinka, where they were promptly exterminated upon arrival.

This postal card (with 2 extra stamps) has an angular September 29, 1942, date stamp to mark when it was sent from Paris. It was received in nearby Kosow Lacki on October 8, 1942 but was returned because by the time it arrived in Sokolow Podlaski, the ghetto had been liquidated.

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Kreh Brothers

The Kreh brothers were dry-goods wholesalers who ran a mail-order business out of Genoa, Italy. They sold religious items, etrogim (citron) and lulavim (palm fronds), for the Jewish holiday of Succoth. The etrogim grown in Genoa were considered the best in the world, and the brothers shipped them all over Europe, including to Poland. Because they could not send money internationally, many Polish Jews sent cards and letters to the brothers during the war, asking them to send the etrogim with promise of payment after the war. If the brothers sent the packages, they rarely got through.

This postal card was sent to the Kreh Brothers from Warsaw. It has a machine Warsaw C1 cancel dated March 10, 1942 and a small rectangular Judenrat Warschau (Warsaw Jewish Council) stamp.

This cover, sent to the Kreh brothers, has a circular Cracow date stamp of September 9, 1941, and a ghetto censor marking on the back from the Cracow Judenrat.

This censor marking is from the Cracow Judenrat.

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Polish Red Cross

This post inquiry card was mailed from Litzmannstadt to the Polish Red Cross in Cracow. It bears a circular date stamp of December 9, 1940, and an advertising cancel.

Litzmannstadt

Lodz, or Litzmannstadt, was the only ghetto to survive the entire war. To organize and implement Nazi policy within the ghetto, the Nazis chose a Jew named Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski. At the time Rumkowski was appointed the Älteste der Juden (Elder of the Jews), he was 62 years old, with billowy, white hair.

Rumkowski was a firm believer in the autonomy of the ghetto. He started many programs that replaced outside bureaucracy with his own. Rumkowski replaced the German currency with ghetto money that bore his image and signature–soon referred to as “Rumkies.” He also created a post office (and stamps with his image, but they never were used for postage). Because the ghetto had no sewage system, he also established a sewage clean-up department.

Rumkowski created jobs and workshops to employ the residents and worked with the Nazis so they would leave him and the ghetto alone. On June 10, 1944, Heinrich Himmler ordered the liquidation of the Lodz ghetto. Rather than tell residents what was happening, Rumkowski told them that workers were needed in Germany to repair the damages caused by air raids. The first transport left on June 23, with many others following until July 15. On July 15, the transports halted.

By August 1944, the Lodz ghetto had been liquidated. Only a few remaining workers were retained by the Nazis to finish confiscating materials and valuables left in the ghetto. Even Rumkowski and his family were included in these last transports to Auschwitz.

When the Soviets liberated the ghetto on January 19, 1945, they found that only 877 Jews remained of the roughly 245,000 who had lived there.