Auction 84 - Jewish and Israeli History, Culture and Art
Including: Items from the Estate of Ruth Dayan, Old Master Works, Israeli Art and Numismatics
December 21, 2021
Displaying 1 - 12 of 17
Auction 84 - Jewish and Israeli History, Culture and Art
December 21, 2021
Opening: $500
Sold for: $1,125
Including buyer's premium
Some 115 postcards related to the Dreyfus affair. Various publishers, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy [late 19th and early 20th centuries]. Some postcards with undivided backs.
The collection includes postcards issued by Dreyfus's supporters, plus a handful representing the anti-Dreyfusards, featuring political cartoons, illustrations, and photographs. Including: portraits of Dreyfus, Emile Zola, Ferdinand Esterhazy, and other figures related to the affair; a number of antisemitic caricatures; "Real-photo" postcards of Dreyfus's exoneration ceremony following his acquittal; and more. Many Dreyfus-related postcards, bearing multiple photographs and illustrations, were printed throughout the Affair, representing various developments in the case. Some postcards sided with Dreyfus, while others were hostile to him. The postcards gradually gained popularity and served as an important propaganda tool. As a whole, they were instrumental in molding public opinion regarding the Affair.
Approx. 115 postcards, including duplicates. Approx. 38 postcards were used. Condition varies.
Alfred Dreyfus (1859-1935), French Jewish army officer, spuriously convicted of treason. Suspicions of fabricated evidence, false testimonies, and a travesty of justice resulted in an outpouring of protest unprecedented in French history. Over time, the subject came to be known as "the Dreyfus affair." Alfred Dreyfus was born in the city of Mulhouse in the Alsace region of France. At age 11, he witnessed the invasion of his hometown by the German army. The experience had a profound impact upon him, and gave him the determination to enlist as a French soldier, which he did in 1877. Dreyfus was accepted to the officers' training course in Fontainbleu, ascended through the ranks, and, in 1893, became the only Jewish officer to attain membership in the French army's General Staff. Shortly after his entry into the General Staff, the French Secret Service uncovered a torn-up note (which later became known as "the bordereau"), sent clandestinely by a French officer to German forces, disclosing highly classified military documents. The French establishment was quick to point an accusing finger at Dreyfus – again, the sole Jewish officer in the General Staff. Dreyfus was immediately arrested and interrogated harshly, without ever being informed of the exact nature of the charges against him. His interrogators went as far as attempting to persuade him to preserve his honor by committing suicide. Following a hastily expedited court martial procedure conducted behind closed doors, Dreyfus was sentenced to life imprisonment and exile on Devil's Island. At the time of his degradation ceremony, whereupon Dreyfus's army rank was canceled, he cried: "Soldiers, they are canceling the rank of an innocent man. Soldiers, they are humiliating an innocent man. Long live France! Long live its army!" Notwithstanding efforts on the part of the French authorities to cover up Dreyfus's story and keep it out of the public eye, it somehow managed to leak to the newspapers and stir up a major outcry that would tear France into two opposing camps, pro- and anti-Dreyfus. The struggle between the camps was unprecedented in scope, and resulted in the publication of countless articles, posters, postcards, and propaganda sheets, all with the purpose of influencing French public opinion. The climax of the Affair came in January 1898 with the publication of the article entitled "J'Accuse" ["I Accuse"] by Émile Zola, one of France's most celebrated authors. The article was worded as an open letter to the President of the French Republic, and assumed the form of an unmitigated attack on the French establishment, the courts, the army, and dozens of public figures and other "bad actors" who took part in Alfred Dreyfus's incrimination process. Publication of the article caused the Affair to reverberate well beyond France's borders; once it began reaching foreign newspapers, it sparked a wave of protests in Belgium, England, Italy, and the United States, and in a few places, the police were called upon to provide security for French embassies. In response to mounting pressure, French President Émile Loubet decided to grant Dreyfus a full pardon, and on September 19, 1899, the decree was signed. In 1903, following a transfer of power in France, a new investigation was launched of all those involved in the Affair, which exposed all the false testimonies and all the miscarriages of justice. This fresh examination resulted in a statement declaring Dreyfus to be completely innocent. A formal exoneration was granted in 1906; Dreyfus was rehabilitated, reinstated into the ranks of the army, and decorated with the title of "Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor."
Category
Antisemitism, the Holocaust and She'erit HaPleatah
Catalogue
Auction 84 - Jewish and Israeli History, Culture and Art
December 21, 2021
Opening: $100
Sold for: $125
Including buyer's premium
"Psst…!" a weekly newspaper by the political cartoonists Jean Louis Forain and "Caran D'Ache." Issues 1-52 (all issues of the first year of publication, bound together). Paris: E. Plon, 1898-99. French.
The weekly journal "Psst…!" was founded at the height of the Dreyfus affair by the illustrators Jean Louis Forain (1852-1931) and "Caran D'Ache" (meaning "pencil" in Russian; pen name of Emmanuel Poiré, 1858-1909). It featured political cartoons and strident illustrations accompanied by brief captions expressing anti-Semitic and anti-Dreyfusard sentiments. The paper closed in 1899. The news media played a significant role in creating the schism that divided French society into two warring camps, the so-called "Dreyfusards" – those who supported the Jewish officer accused of treason – and the "anti-Dreyfusards" who opposed him. The latter group typically adhered to virulently anti-Semitic beliefs. The period was something a "golden age" for illustrators and cartoonists, who produced voluminous material in the service of the respective camps. "Psst…!" was one of the leading publications in those years.
52 issues (4 pp. per issue; general title page at the beginning of volume), 38.5 cm. Good condition. Minor stains and blemishes. Minor tears to edges of several leaves. Binding with gilt design. Minor blemishes to binding.
Category
Antisemitism, the Holocaust and She'erit HaPleatah
Catalogue
Auction 84 - Jewish and Israeli History, Culture and Art
December 21, 2021
Opening: $300
Sold for: $400
Including buyer's premium
Le gens du ‘Bloc' [People of the ‘Bloc'], by the anti-Semitic political cartoonist "Bruno." Booklets 1 and 2 (apparently, no additional booklets were published). Paris: Librairie Antijuive / Librairie Antisemite, 1903 and 1904. French.
Two booklets of political cartoons, of the series "Le gens du ‘Bloc, '" propaganda against the left-wing coalition (the so-called "Bloc") that had gained power in the course of the Dreyfus affair, and eventually brought about Dreyfus's full exoneration and rehabilitation. With caricatures of the main characters in the Affair – Alfred Dreyfus, Emile Zola, Jean Jaurès, Prime Minister Emile Combes, cabinet ministers belonging the "Bloc" coalition, and others. One of the cartoons features Theodor Herzl.
1. "Autour du Cabinet – Les gens du ‘Bloc.'" Published by Librairie Antisemite. 1903. With introduction by Édouard Drumont (1844-1917), founder and editor of the anti-Semitic newspaper "La Libre Parole"; and with an antisemitic poem by François Coppée (1842-1908). [13] ff. (including front cover), approx. 37.5X27.5 cm. Back cover missing. Good-fair condition. Stains. Several tears to edges. Small open tears to three last leaves (with minor damage to print). Strip of adhesive tape to length of spine. 2. "Chéquards, Pochards, Mouchards – Les gens du ‘Bloc' (2e Série)." Published by Librairie Antijuive. 1904. With introduction by anti-Semitic author Henri Rochefort (1831-1913). [14] ff. (including cover), approx. 37.5X27.5 cm. Good condition. Minor stains and blemishes. Several tears. Blemishes and tears to edges of cover (one mended with tape). Tear to length of spine; detached leaves.
From 1902 to 1905, France was ruled by a coalition of left-wing and centrist parties known as "Le bloc républicain" ("the Republican Bloc") or "Le bloc des gauche" ("the Leftist Bloc"). These were years of relative stability and tranquility for France's Third Republic; progressive legislative reforms were introduced (most notably the law separating church and state), important agreements were signed with Russia and Great Britain, rule over French colonies was solidified, and all this brought about economic prosperity. It was the height of the period referred to in hindsight as "La Belle Epoque" ("the Beautiful Period"). The Dreyfus affair was one of the main issues dealt with by the coalition; its ministers insisted on reopening the case, and set up a commission of inquiry that finally led to Dreyfus's full exoneration. The reexamination of the affair was perceived as a belaboring of the matter, and spurred an arousal and strengthening of France's anti-Semitic right. Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories – alleging that the Republic and its economy were being clandestinely controlled and manipulated by the Jews, the Freemasons, the Protestants, and other foreigners – began to take hold in the French public discourse. The two booklets in question were published on behalf of the "anti-Dreyfusards" at the time when the "Bloc" coalition was in power, and they decry – satirically and grotesquely – the malicious rot that had allegedly pervaded the French democratic system; the disproportionate power amassed by corrupt Jewish tycoons; the scheming plots being woven by the Freemasons; the undermining of French society by the all-powerful conspirator Alfred Dreyfus; the surreptitious influence of the Germans on internal French politics; and all sorts of other classic anti-Semitic and anti-Republican themes.
Category
Antisemitism, the Holocaust and She'erit HaPleatah
Catalogue
Auction 84 - Jewish and Israeli History, Culture and Art
December 21, 2021
Opening: $800
Sold for: $2,000
Including buyer's premium
Jüdisches Adressbuch für Gross-Berlin [Jewish Directory (Address Book) for Greater Berlin]. Managing editor: H. Arnold. Berlin: Goedega Verlags-Gesellschaft, [1929]. German.
A directory (address book) of the Jews of Berlin, published for the years 1929-30, and listing the names and personal details of over seventy thousand Jewish Berliners – roughly a third of Berlin's Jewish population at the time. Alphabetically arranged according to last name, giving last and first names, occupation or profession, and address. A small picture of a telephone receiver is added to indicate telephone owners. The address book includes advertisements for hundreds of Jewish companies and places of business in Berlin (some printed on colored paper). The last section of the book gives information regarding the Jewish community of Berlin (the educational system, welfare system, religious services, and more) and lists dozens of Jewish associations and organizations, grouped according to various categories: general associations, aid organizations, synagogue and community associations, youth organizations, professional organizations, cultural organizations, women's organizations, student organizations, Zionist organizations, sport leagues, and more. Even before it was printed, this book aroused a great deal of controversy among the Jews of Berlin. Some regarded its publication a provocative act that exposed the city's Jews to grave danger. In the introduction to this edition, the editors addressed the issue of the atmosphere in Berlin and attempted to refute their opponents' arguments: "There are of course Jews who object to a Jewish address book, since they are not interested in seeing themselves described as Jews in print. We do not consider such an objection to be valid. We know very well that the anti-Jewish movement nowadays has a clear tendency to identify any person with a Jewish-sounding name as Jewish […] the German Jews, in general, see themselves as a loyal organ of the German people […] they proved it during the World War, when tens of thousands sacrificed their lives for the German people and homeland." The printers of the present directory intended to publish a new directory once every two years, but only one more edition was published, in 1931, two years before the Nazis came to power.
496, [2] pp. + [5] advertisement plates. Approx. 29 cm. Good condition. Stains. Somewhat brittle paper. Tears, some open, mostly to edges of leaves (some mended). Strips of glued paper for reinforcement to length of one leaf (p. 9-10). One plate detached. Inked stamps. Notation in pen on front pastedown. Pen marks on some leaves. Binding boards stained and slightly worn. Spine restored.
Category
Antisemitism, the Holocaust and She'erit HaPleatah
Catalogue
Auction 84 - Jewish and Israeli History, Culture and Art
December 21, 2021
Opening: $100
Sold for: $1,063
Including buyer's premium
Entrance ticket issued to steward at the event at which Albert Einstein delivered his last speech before leaving Europe – the "Professor Einstein Meeting" – at the Royal Albert Hall, London, October 3, 1933. English.
The so-called "Professor Einstein Meeting" was held just a few months after the rise of the Nazis to power in Germany, and addressed the subjects of academic freedom and the dangers faced by the intelligentsia under the new regime. The participants at the gathering included intellectuals and scientists – such as Nobel laureates Ernest Rutherford and Sir Austen Chamberlain – from all over Europe, and primarily, Albert Einstein, who gave his last speech before leaving Europe:
"If we want to resist the powers which threaten to suppress intellectual and individual freedom we must keep clearly before us what is at stake, and what we owe to that freedom which our ancestors have won for us after hard struggles. Without such freedom there would have been no Shakespeare, no Goethe, no Newton, no Faraday, no Pasteur, and no Lister. There would be no comfortable houses for the mass of people, no railway, no wireless, no protection against epidemics, no cheap books, no culture and no enjoyment of art at all. There would be no machines to relieve the people from the arduous labour needed for the production of the essential necessities of life. Most people would lead a dull life of slavery just as under the ancient despotisms of Asia. It is only men who are free, who create the inventions and intellectual works which to us moderns make life worthwhile."
Approx. 11.5X9 cm. Good condition. Minor stains.
Category
Antisemitism, the Holocaust and She'erit HaPleatah
Catalogue
Auction 84 - Jewish and Israeli History, Culture and Art
December 21, 2021
Opening: $800
Sold for: $1,000
Including buyer's premium
Juden werden hier nicht bedient! [Jews Will Not Be Served Here]. Antisemitic sign, to be hung on shopfronts and in shop windows. Printed on heavy paper. [1930s or early 1940s]. German.
Nazi anti-Jewish policy initially intended to encourage Jews to emigrate from Germany by excluding them from participation in economic life, among other measures taken against them. The "purge" of Aryan economy from Jews was perceived as a high-priority ideological goal, and the leadership of the Nazi party encouraged Aryan businesses to boycott Jewish customers. Under these circumstances, a great number of signs similar to the present one, were hung on shopfronts and in shop windows throughout Germany.
24X32 cm. Heavy paper. Good condition. Stains. Minor creases. Fold lines. Minor tears to edges. Some minute holes.
Category
Antisemitism, the Holocaust and She'erit HaPleatah
Catalogue
Auction 84 - Jewish and Israeli History, Culture and Art
December 21, 2021
Opening: $200
Sold for: $1,375
Including buyer's premium
The Black Album. Tel-Aviv: The Anti-Nazi League, Series A, April 1940. Hebrew, English and French. A complete postcard booklet holding ten postcards.
This booklet is a very early public visual documentation, maybe the first of its kind, of Nazi crimes on European soil, especially in Poland.
The Anti-Nazi League, which published the booklet in April 1940, aimed to set up "propaganda and publicity in Israel and abroad against the Nazi regime, the Nazi spirit and racial hate". These ideas have been realized in this booklet; not only in the photographs printed on the postcards, but also, and especially, in the introduction added by the anti-Nazi league members. Printed on the inside cover: " Hitlerism means return to the savagery of the dark Middle Ages. In Poland, the Jews are compelled to wear on their backs the yellow badge as reproduced on the envelope of the Black Album. The Black Album contains the first series of pictures disclosing Nazi atrocities in Poland. The Black Album gives a vivid description of the Nazi regime and its cruel systems. Everybody is hereby enabled to unmask Hitlerism by sending the post-cards of the Album to his friends and acquaintances all over the world ". Similar words appear in the introduction: "… In Hitler's Germany, vast concentration camps have been established where Nazi sadists torture their unfortunate victims to an extent never before conceived by human imagination. In these camps of suffering and death, the prisoners, principally Jewish, are submitted to most cruel corporal and spiritual humiliation, to hard labor, starvation and severe molestation leading to aberration of the mind and death ".
Each postcard is titled – "Death in Hitler's step", "Nazi hangmen at work", "One of the hundreds of victims in Poland", "Migration of nations into misery", "Nazi victims converted into ashes", and more – and is accompanied by captions specifying some of the methods of Nazi brutality and destruction which were publicly verified and published only years later: death of thousands from disease, cold and hunger; daily execution and hanging of bodies on gallows in central streets of Polish cities; slave labor; cleaning streets with mouths and hands; cremating bodies to ash, etc. The titles are in English. The introduction is in Hebrew and English. The captions are in Hebrew and French.
Booklet: 16.5X10.5 cm. Postcards: 14X10 cm. Good condition. Minor damage to cover and edge of one postcard. Stains to cover. A few stains inside booklet.
Category
Antisemitism, the Holocaust and She'erit HaPleatah
Catalogue
Auction 84 - Jewish and Israeli History, Culture and Art
December 21, 2021
Opening: $250
Sold for: $313
Including buyer's premium
Z otchłani, poezje [From the Abyss, Poems]. Warsaw: Ż. K. N. ("Jewish National Committee"), 1944. Polish.
"From the Abyss", published about a year after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, is a rare expression of resistance to the Nazi regime and its crimes in the Jewish ghetto and outside of it. The eleven poems in the book were printed anonymously and their writers' identity was revealed only after the liberation of Poland by the Red Army – Nobel Laureate Czesław Miłosz, literary scholar Jan Kott, Jewish poets Mieczysław Jastrun and Michal Borwicz, and others. The editor of the collection is, presumably, the poet Tadeusz Sarnecki, a member of Żegota, the underground Polish Council to Aid Jews, who wrote the last poem in the book and was the only one who signed it with a pseudonym – Jan Wajdelota. The publisher, "Jewish National Committee" (Żydowski Komitet Narodowy), was an underground organization founded in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942. It served as the "political arm" of the Jewish Fighting Organization ŻOB and was responsible for its contact with the resistance outside the ghetto. This book, published about a year after the Jewish military resistance was repressed, was smuggled from Europe to the USA and printed in New York when the war was still raging, under the title "Ghetto Poetry of the Jewish Underground in Poland" (Polish: Poezje ghetta z podziemia żydowskiego w Polsce; published by Association of Friends of our Tribune, 1945). One of the better-known poems in this book is "Campo de' Fiori" by Czesław Miłosz – one of the greatest poets of the 20th century and a Nobel Laureate in literature (1980). The poem describes the indifference of the masses in face of two historical atrocities – the burning at the stake of the Italian scientist Giordano Bruno in Campo de' Fiori and the crushing of the Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto by the German army: "the people of Rome or Warsaw / haggle, laugh, make love / as they pass by the martyrs' pyres" (Translation: David Brooks and Louis Iribarne).
23 pp, approx. 14 cm. Good condition. Minor creases. Stains to cover and first leaf. Top edge trimmed at a slant.
Category
Antisemitism, the Holocaust and She'erit HaPleatah
Catalogue
Auction 84 - Jewish and Israeli History, Culture and Art
December 21, 2021
Opening: $150
Unsold
Powstanie w ghetcie warszawskiem [The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising], by Bernard Mark. Moscow: Nakladem Zwiazku Patriotów Polskich w ZSRR, 1944. Polish.
This work, by Jewish historian Bernard Mark (1908-1966), is considered one of the first accounts of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and the first such account officially published for the wide public. Original cover designed by Mieczysław Berman. Mieczysław Berman (1903-1975), an influential artist and graphic designer, born in Warsaw, is known mainly for his political works – photomontages, posters and films. His works were displayed in prestigious galleries and museums in the world, including the Israel Museum ("Dada, Surrealism and Beyond", 2007).
70, [2] pp, approx. 16.5 cm. Good condition. Some stains. Bookplate to inside front cover. Creases and minor blemishes to cover. Pen notation to back cover.
Category
Antisemitism, the Holocaust and She'erit HaPleatah
Catalogue
Auction 84 - Jewish and Israeli History, Culture and Art
December 21, 2021
Opening: $100
Sold for: $350
Including buyer's premium
Collection of photographs of She'erit HaPletah in Europe: Jordenbad and Ziegenhain Displaced Persons camps, and other places, [second half of the 1940s].
28 photographs, including: • 7 group photographs and portraits from Jordenbad DP camp in Germany. Inscribed by the photographees on verso, to a member of HaShomer Hatza'ir youth movement "comrade Tzvi", on the occasion of his immigration to Palestine (1946). • Two additional photographs dedicated to Tzvi, one dated 1945. • Additional photographs (mostly uncaptioned and undated), including: photograph depicting a protest march (one of the protesters holds a sign reading "down with the English pirates"; Yiddish), photograph of a Hora dance, and more.
Approx. 5X7.5 to 7X10 cm. Condition varies.
Category
Antisemitism, the Holocaust and She'erit HaPleatah
Catalogue
Auction 84 - Jewish and Israeli History, Culture and Art
December 21, 2021
Opening: $300
Sold for: $425
Including buyer's premium
29 photographs of "She'erit Hapletah" in Europe, including group photographs from DP camps, studio photographs sent to relatives, and more. Germany, Czech Republic, Poland and France, the second half of the 1940s.
Collection of photographs taken in Europe after the Holocaust, including group photographs of survivors in the DP camps and studio photographs. Several of the photographs were printed on postcards and some are captioned on verso or bear handwritten dedications. Among the photographs: • Seven photographs of survivors in the Zeilsheim (Frankfurt am Mein) DP camp. Six of them bear stamps of local photographers – "Photo Robinson" and "S. Krotman-N. Bykow". • Six group photographs taken in 1947 in the Auschwitz Extermination Camp and near its entrance. Captioned and dated in the plate: "Oświęcim 1947, Fot. Szajnert". • Photograph of a Passover-night table and alongside it, on the wall, a Star of David and the flag of Israel. Captioned on verso in handwriting (Hebrew): "On Leil HaSeder in Calais (France), the Opera Hall, April 1946". • Photographs from the Föhrenwald and Deggendorf DP camps. • Photograph (on a postcard) of a group dancing the Hora. One of them is carrying the Zionist flag. • And more.
29 photographs, approx. 7.5X5.5 cm to 10.5X14.5 cm. Condition varies.
Provenance: The Rimon Family Collection.
Category
Antisemitism, the Holocaust and She'erit HaPleatah
Catalogue
Auction 84 - Jewish and Israeli History, Culture and Art
December 21, 2021
Opening: $200
Sold for: $275
Including buyer's premium
Album containing photographs and documents, which had belonged to Maurice Schellevis (Schellekes). Bavaria, Germany, ca. 1945-46.
Schellevis, born in Zandvoort, Holland, in 1922, was a war prisoner in the Ebensee forced labor camp, near Mauthausen. After the war, he served as an interpreter for the American Army in Bavaria and was appointed Mayor of Riederau am Ammersee in the region of Landsberg, Bavaria. He died in Haifa in 1988. The album contains approx. 140 photographs, post WWII (some earlier or later photographs and some family photographs) as well as approx. 25 documents, including: a prisoner release certificate from the Ebensee forced labor camp (May 1945); certificate issued in Landsberg, certifying that the holder was a political prisoner during the war (August 1945); letter of recommendation certifying that after his release Schellevis worked as an interpreter in a US Army field hospital (October 1945); letter from the Red Cross in Bavaria (December 1945); vehicle license for driving in the American Zone in Germany (1946); Driving license (Landsberg 1945); temporary ID issued by UNRRA (December 1946); and other documents. Enclosed: a "U.S Army Interpreter" armband and an additional fabric badge.
Size and condition vary. Album: 30X20 cm. Overall good-fair condition. Most of the documents and photographs are mounted to the pages of the album. Stains. Tears to several documents.
Provenance: The Rimon Family Collection.
Category
Antisemitism, the Holocaust and She'erit HaPleatah
Catalogue