At Auschwitz 2, or Birkenau, several distinctive camps were established. The family camp established by the Nazis was modeled after the Theresienstadt ghetto. It was supposed to be a model camp where the International Red Cross would visit and the see how well the Jews were treated under the Nazis. This never came to fruition.

On September 8, 1943, the first residents of the Family Camps were transported to Auschwitz: 5000 Czechoslovakian Jews. They set up a model town with schools, a government, and postal system. The Nazis asked them to write post cards to their friends and relatives on March 9, 1944. The next day all the people in the family camp were gassed. The Nazis kept sending out these cards months after those who wrote them were killed. The Nazis parlance called this a Brief Aktion. Brief means “letter” and Aktion by Nazi definition is the German word for an “action” or campaign. When used by the SS or Gestapo, it often meant the roundup or murder of Jews.

This postcard was sent to Pislen, Czechoslovakia, with the return address Arbeitslager Birkenau, where the family camp was located. It was distributed through the Jewish Association in Berlin.

A peculiarity existed in Birkenau: the Politische Abteilung, as the camp’s Gestapo office was called. This institution employed German-speaking Jewish women as secretaries. They enjoyed better living conditions than the other inmates because the SS saw to it that the inmates with whom they had daily contact had more hygienic surroundings. It is assumed that the SS preferred using Jewish women as secretaries because they were educated, had mastered several languages, and would never see freedom again, and thus would not be able to divulge any secrets.

This postcard, sent from a secretary employed in Auschwitz’s Politische Abteilung. It was placed into special mail bag #77 originating from the camp. The card was not censored, other than receiving the handstamped admonishment to write in German.