About 100 letters, certificates and documents, exchanged between the tax authority in Vienna (Finanzamt) and various entities in Nazi Germany – The Central Office for Jewish Emigration, the property registration authority, the Gestapo, the Nazi Party and other entities. Austria and Germany, late 1930s to mid-1940s. German.
The letters and documents are typewritten on official letterheads, with many handwritten comments, stamps and handwritten signatures of the responsible officials, providing a peek into the "backstage" of the bureaucratic mechanism in Nazi Germany – the process of Aryanization and expropriation of Jewish property, cancellation of debts of outstanding officials and officers, the tax arrangements of the various bodies, the ties of commercial companies with the party and more. In the collection:
· 17 letters by the property registration authority (Vermögensverkehrsstelle; the official title of the institution set up to manage the expropriation of Jewish property in Austria) – a letter dealing with the expropriation of a clothing business in Vienna owned by Vera Mund, a Jewish woman; a power of attorney for taking over the property of the Jew Rudolf (Israel) Taussig of Vienna; a letter dealing with the liquidation of the Carl Bondy & Co. export company (which belonged to a Jewish-Austrian citizen); and more.
· Two letters by The Central Office for Jewish Emigration, dealing with payments that will be imposed on Jews requesting an exit permit from Austria.
· Three letters by Gestapo members, one dealing with the revocation of the German citizenship of Hans (Israel) Freund of Vienna and expropriation of his property.
· Seventeen letters of recommendation for the cancellation of debts and tax breaks for Nazi high-ranking officials in Austria, including five letters of recommendation for the Governor of Vienna and SS officer Franz Richter; letter of recommendation for award of the Blood Order decoration to Nazi Party member Antonie Friedmann (one of a total of sixteen women to be awarded the decoration); and additional letters of recommendation.
· Letters by senior Wehrmacht officers, chief of the Vienna Police, Leo Gotzmann, the broadcasting authority of Nazi Germany, "The Reich Film Department" (Reichsfilmkammer), the Reichswerke Hermann Göring industrial conglomerate, the Heinkel aircraft manufacturing company, the Vienna Gerngross shopping center (expropriated from its Jewish owners), and more.
About 100 items. Size and condition vary. Good overall condition.

"Mishloach Manot… 5701" (Hebrew), a handwritten booklet made for the festival of Purim and presented to the head of the Lodz Ghetto Judenrat, Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski. [Lodz], 1941.
The booklet, presumably made by a resident of the Lodz Ghetto, contains several word plays in the spirit of Purim: the author's name was encoded within a verse written on the title page (some of the letters are marked and when combined reveal the Hebrew name Ya'akov Brickman); the second page features seven blessings, arranged in the form of a Star of David; and the third page features an acrostic poem – the first letters of the lines spell the Hebrew name "Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski". The booklet also features three interesting inscriptions – a Hebrew inscription on the title page reads "From the yeshiva students, [?]irska 43/45" (Hebrew); another Hebrew inscription on the same page reads "My works are for a king; my tongue is a pen of an expert scribe" (Psalms 45:2); the third inscription, written in Yiddish on the back of the last leaf, reads "to the elder [or wisest] of the Jews of the Litzmannstadt Ghetto, Mr. M.C. Rumkowski".
Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski (1877-1944) headed the Judenrat of the Lodz Ghetto through its entire existence. Rumkowski is considered one of the most controversial figures in the history of the Holocaust and as the head of the ghetto instituted an extreme personality cult, orchestrating parades in his honor, hanging his picture in schools, issuing banknotes and postage stamps with his portrait, etc., so much that some defined his rule as "a state within a state, a corrupt Fascist miniature". Among his roles, Rumkowski was responsible for providing lists of people to be deported to the extermination camps. In 1944, he was transferred with the last inmates of the ghetto to the Auschwitz extermination camp, where he was murdered, presumably, that same day.
[4] leaves (two sheets folded in half, stapled to form a booklet). Approx. 30.5 cm. Good condition. Minor stains and creases. Fold lines. Small tears to edges. A small open tear to first leaf (slightly affecting text).