Auction 87 - Jewish and Israeli Art, History and Culture
Including: sketches by Ze'ev Raban and Bezalel items, hildren's books, avant-garde books, rare ladino periodicals, and more
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The collection tells the story of the refugee Tzvi Eilat (Cvi Girsas Chvackinas) – his long journey from his native Kaunas (Kovne), through Switzerland, where he found refuge during the war, and eventually to Palestine.
Among the documents:
• Eilat's official birth certificate (Kaunas, 1937; Lithuanian). • Confirmation of graduation of a public school (Kaunas, 1939; original in Lithuanian and a French translation). • Discharge certificate from as Swiss jail (Lenzburg, northern Switzerland, 1943; German), indicating a good behavior during the period of the arrest. • Swiss "Flüchtlingsausweis" – refugee identification card (Bern, September, 1943) – containing visas, and additional personal information. • Two photo student cards of the University of Lausanne, and university confirmation of registration (Lausanne, 1944-1945; French). • Two immigration certificates, issued by HeHalutz Geneva office (July-August, 1945; German). • Notification for "comrade Tzvi" (residing in Lausanne), informing him that he was put on the list for the "third Aliyah transport, " and an itinerary for the journey on board the "Lima, " sailing from Barcelona to Palestine. • Swiss photo identification card, used as Eilat's travelling document to Palestine (Bern, August, 1945). Containing an entry visa to Palestine (August, 1945), French border stamps (August, 1945), permit to remain permanently in Palestine as an immigrant (September, 1945), entry stamp from the Haifa port, and more. • Additional documents (some later).
Approx. 20 paper items. Size and condition vary.
17 letters, written by Jewish POWs from Palestine, volunteers to the British army, held in the German camp "Stalag VIII-B / 344." Lamsdorf, 1941-1944. English and German.
Letters handwritten (in pencil) on prisoner-of-war letter sheets (folding; mailed without the use of envelopes). Both sides of each letter stamped with official camp stamps (different stamps; the name of the camp changes in the later letters – see below, ) and most are stamped with British censor's stamps. The work company to which the sender belonged (coal mining, loading and unloading freight trains, etc.) is indicated in some letters.
Most letters were written by the POW Shelomoh Sela (Slodash), a soldier of the British Royal Pioneer Corps, who was captured during the German invasion of Greece (1941). Apparently, Slodash sent several of his letters under the names of other prisoners, signing them in Hebrew letters or with the word "your". The letters are addressed to his wife Elisheba in Tel Aviv (one letter addressed to their son, Ilan).
The letters contain words of consolation and greetings to Slodash's wife, son, family and friends. Slodash thanks his wife for the letters she sent, and tells her of his life in the camp. E.g., in a letter dated 5.8.1943, he assures her that the prisoners have access to hot water for bathing and drinking coffee and tea, enough time to rest and read newspapers and books, and receive food packages from the Red Cross. In a letter dated 27.9.1943 Slodash mentions a poem written to him by his son: "I was surprised of the 2 lines of Ilan's song, as I see he know what is Gola, his little heart are beating to this place, where his father is […] Tell him that he is brave. I'm proud of him."
Following his release, Slodash returned to Palestine, and published a book about his experience in the German Prisoner-of-war camp.
Palestinian-Jewish Prisoners-of-war in the German Stalag
More than 1,000 Jewish volunteers from Palestine who served in the British army were captured by the Germans during the Battle of Greece, in spring, 1941. Initially they were interned in Greece. Following the German invasion of Soviet Russia, they were transported under harsh conditions to temporary camps, and later, to "Stalag VIII-B" prisoner-of-war camp ("Stalag": a contraction of the German term "Stammlager, " translated as "main camp, " which is surrounded by a network of "sub-camps.") The camp was situated near Lamsdorf (today Łambinowice, southern Poland, ) in the vicinity of Auschwitz-Burkenau; throughout the war, hundreds of thousands of prisoners of the Allied Forces had passed through the camp.
Despite a certain oversight by the Red Cross, the conditions in the camp were harsh, although as a rule, the Jewish volunteers were not treated worse than the rest of the camp's population. Within a short while after their internment, Jewish prisoners of the Stalag began to organize community life: they shared food packages with each other, produced various cultural events, established Hebrew classes, and more.
On several instances, Jewish POWs encountered groups of Auschwitz prisoners, from whom they gained first-hand knowledge of Nazi prosecution and annihilation of European Jewry. On some occasions, they tried to help the concentration camp prisoners by smuggling food packages with the aid of non-Jewish British POWs.
In 1943, the Germans re-organizes their network of POW camps, and Stalag VIII-B was re-named Stammlager 344.
Throughout the war, several prisoners had managed to escape the camp, and some prisoners were exchanged for German soldiers, and returned to Palestine. As the Eastern Front drew near, the camp's POWs were evacuated westwards. Some were liberated by the Red Army (the camp was liberated by the Russians on March 17, 1945,) and some were only released when the war in Europe was won in May 1945.
For Further reading, see: "Palestinian POWs in German Captivity", by Yoav Gelber (available online on the website of Yad Vashem.)
17 letters, approx. 34.5X15 cm. Good overall condition. Stains. Fold lines. Minor tears to edges and along fold lines, with minor damage to text in several letters. Two of the letters missimg tab used to seal the letter sheet.
Letters typewritten on official stationery with letterheads of various Nazi organizations, bearing many handwritten remarks, inked stamps and signatures of Nazi officials and clerks.
The items in the present collection provide a fascinating insight into the workings of Nazi bureaucracy in Germany and Austria: the Aryanization of Jewish property, the collection of the "Reich Flight Tax, " which particularly targeted Jews seeking to escape Nazi Germany, writs of execution against several Jews (in accordance with the law, given names of Jewish men and women appearing on official documents are supplemented with the names "Israel" and "Sara", respectively) – All testify to the bureaucratized robbery of Jewish assets, concealed under a legal guise.
The majority of the collection comprises annual tax statements, payslips detailing salaries and deductions, pensions and stipends, paid to Austrian and German clerks, soldiers, disabled veterans, musicians, and others; employment certificates issued by various Nazi institutions; correspondence relating to industrial production for the war effort; various administrative requests exchanged between different governmental bodies, many of which by the "German Labour Front, " and more.
Included:
• Document sent by the Brigittenau district tax office in Vienna, to the Mariahilf district tax office, regarding a writ of execution against the Jewish woman Elisabeth Sara Steiner (29.5.1941).
• Document sent from Gänserndorf in Gau Niederdonau, to the tax office in Mistelbach – approval of submission of a tax statement by three Jewish individuals: Malvine, Siegfried and Julie Peschkes (18.11.1938).
• Form sent from the Neubau district authority in Vienna to the Lemberg (Lviv) tax office, requesting administrative assistance in collecting a debt from the Jews Irma (Sara) and Erwin Hopmeier (21.11.1941).
• Request for payment issued by the Mariahilf district tax office to the Jew Gustav Israel Holzer; payment required for the purpose of cancellation of a standing foreclosure order (1.12.1941).
• Document sent by the Vermögensverkehrsstelle in Vienna – the authority overseeing the Aryanization of Jewish property – to the tax office in Mariahilf, confirming the Aryanization of the company B. Wolkenstein (28.1.1941).
• Letter sent by the authority overseeing the Aryanization of Jewish property in the Ministry for Economy and Labour (Vermögungsverkehrsstelle im Ministerium für Wirtschaft und Arbeit), sent to the Neubau tax office, with regards to the Jewish woman Bortcza Herzl (this name appears in a list of victims of Aryanization published in the book "Das Dreieck meiner Kindheit", Vienna, 2008. p. 216.)
• Document issued by the Air Force command (Flugplatzkommando A 21/XVI) in Brünn (Brno) detailing annual salary payments made to colonel Rudolf Prochaska. Prochaska is believed to have been one of the Nazi assailants who assassinated Austrian chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss, during the "July Putsch" in 1934 (7.3.1944).
• Letters and documents exchanged between engineers and administrators of the "German Labour Front, " regarding the development of alternative methods for manufacturing fibers required by the arms industry (1940-1941).
• Many additional documents, issued by various governmental organizations: tax offices in different districts of Vienna, Berlin, Düsseldorf, and other cities; The Viennese police (Der Polizeipräsident in Wien, ) the Reich's administration in Vienna, and more; several financial periodicals, and other official documents.
Approx. 120 items. Size varies. Good overall condition.
This letter was printed in German and Hungarian on the official stationery of the "Schweizerische Gesandtschaft, Abteilung für fremde Interessen" (The Swiss Legation, Department of Foreign Interests) managed by the diplomat Carl Lutz. It certifies that the bearer is included in a collective Swiss passport.
Carl Lutz (1895-1975), Swiss diplomat. Appointed in 1942 to serve as vice consul in charge of the "Department of Foreign Interests" in the Swiss Embassy in Hungary. Worked to expedite the emigration of Jews from Hungary, whose borders were still open at the time. Just before the occupation of Hungary by the Germans, Lutz began exercising his authority to issue "Schutzbriefe" ("Protective Letters"), thus resorting to an idea originally conceived by Moshe (Miklos) Krausz, director of the Palestine Office in Budapest. The letters granted diplomatic protection to Jews with emigration permits. Eventually, this idea of "protective letters" was adopted by other ambassadors, and enabled the rescue of large numbers of Jews. Lutz displayed extraordinary dedication in his efforts to save Jews, and refused to leave Budapest even after the siege encircling the city was tightened. He remained there, steadfast in his mission, until the conquest of Budapest by the Soviet Red Army in 1945; only then did he return to Switzerland. For all his noble efforts and achievements in rescuing Jews during the Holocaust, Israel's Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center bestowed upon him the title of "Righteous Among the Nations" in 1965.
1 f., approx. 30 cm. Good-fair condition. Fold lines and creases. Minor stains. Tears to edges and to length of fold lines (reinforced with strip of adhesive tape on back).
This letter was printed in German and Hungarian on the official stationery of the "Schweizerische Gesandtschaft, Abteilung für fremde Interessen" (Swiss Legation, Department of Foreign Interests) managed by the diplomat Carl Lutz. It certifies that the bearer is included in a collective Swiss passport.
Carl Lutz (1895-1975), Swiss diplomat. Appointed in 1942 to serve as vice consul in charge of the "Department of Foreign Interests" in the Swiss Embassy in Hungary. Worked to expedite the emigration of Jews from Hungary, whose borders were still open at the time. Just before the occupation of Hungary by the Germans, Lutz began exercising his authority to issue "Schutzbriefe" ("Protective Letters"), thus resorting to an idea originally conceived by Moshe (Miklos) Krausz, director of the Palestine Office in Budapest. The letters granted diplomatic protection to Jews with emigration permits. Eventually, this idea of "protective letters" was adopted by other ambassadors, and enabled the rescue of large numbers of Jews. Lutz displayed extraordinary dedication in his efforts to save Jews, and refused to leave Budapest even after the siege encircling the city was tightened. He remained there, steadfast in his mission, until the conquest of Budapest by the Soviet Red Army in 1945; only then did he return to Switzerland. For all his noble efforts and achievements in rescuing Jews during the Holocaust, Israel's Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center bestowed upon him the title of "Righteous Among the Nations" in 1965.
1 f., 22.5 cm. Good-fair condition. Stains and fold lines. Minor tears to edges. Small hole at intersection of fold lines. Punch holes, mended with adhesive tape on verso.
1. "Letter of Protection" (Schutzbrief), issued by the Red Cross in Budapest (printed in Hungarian, German, French and Russian), stating that as an employee of the Budapest Waterworks, Dr. Schmied is under the protection of the Red Cross. Stamped with the signature-stamp of the Red Cross representative, Righteous Among the Nations, Friedrich Born. 21 December, 1944.
2-5. Four identification documents, issued to Dr. Schmied during WWII: • Civil identity card (Polgári személyi lap), 1941. • Permit issued to Schmied as an employee in a military facility, 1944. • Certificate for an essential employee in the waterworks, 1945 (Hungarian and Russian). • Identification card, issued by the Budapest police headquarters, May 7, 1945 (the day Nazi Germany surrendered).
Size and condition vary. Overall good-fair condition.
Документи [Documents, ] edited by Natan Grinberg. Sofia: консистория на евреитѣ въ България [The Jewish Consistory of Bulgaria]: 1945. Bulgarian.
First documentation of official records and papers of the Holocaust in Thrace, Macedonia, and Pirot. Some evidence of the systematic extermination of Jews by the Nazis already surfaced during World War II, but official documentation, originating from the bureaucratic organization of the perpetrators themselves, was scarce. The present booklet is among the first publications of such documents, directly relating to Nazi efforts to exterminate European Jewry.
The booklet comprises re-prints of official Bulgarian documents, related to the deportation of Jews from territories taken from Greece and Yugoslavia, and granted to Bulgaria by the Germans: Thrace, Macedonia, and the Serbian city Pirot. The approx. 80 documents include orders and instructions of deportation, various reports, logistical plans, financial matters related to the operation, and more, all originating from the bureaucratic mechanism of the fascist Bulgarian regime. Several black and white pictures taken during the deportations are printed at the end of the booklet.
The documents were collected by the Natan Grinberg (1903-1988), a Jewish businessman, who during the war was employed by the Bulgarian "Commissariat for Jewish Questions", established to implement anti-Jewish legislation. The present booklet was printed in early 1945 (presumably, it was hastily prepared to be used in the trial against fascist war criminals, held in the Bulgarian People's Court after the war; the present copy's cover is marked with inked stamps and postage stamps from March, 1945.)
After its publication, the booklet did not receive much attention, and was not re-printed until 2015 (one of the reason being that the evidence it contains did not serve Bulgaria's image as protector of its Jews, and could potentially hamper its efforts to evade paying reparations to victims.)
The Holocaust in Thrace, Macedonia, and Pirot
In 1941, the Bulgarian parliament passed the antisemitic "Law for the Protection of the Nation, " which was intended to ostracize Bulgarian Jews from public life, thus promoting a solution to the "Jewish problem." The racial laws included numerus clausus in the universities, expulsion of Jews from public service, a requirement that Jews wear a yellow Star of David on their clothes, various fines, expulsion from larger cities, confiscation of property, forced labor, and imprisonment in concentration camps.
In March 1941 the Kingdom of Bulgaria, led by Boris III and the antisemitic royalist, prime minister Bogdan Filov, had joined the "Tripartite Pact" (a military alliance originally signed between Germany, Italy and Japan.) As part of the pact, Bulgaria agreed to provide support for the Axis powers, but avoided a direct involvement in the war. In return, entering the pact had enabled the regime to capture territories conceived by Bulgarian nationalists as an inseparable part of "Greater Bulgaria."
Jews of these regions did not become Bulgarian citizens, and did not enjoy any legal protections. In 1943 the Germans demanded that Bulgaria send a "quota" of 20,000 Jews to extermination camps. In accordance with the demand, the "Commissariat for Jewish Affairs" organized the deportation of more than 11,000 stateless Jews from the newly acquired regions, to the death camp Treblinka.
The deportation was carried out by the Bulgarian military and police forces, and was financed with money and property robbed from the deportees themselves; according to Gideon Hausner, head prosecutor in the Eichmann trial, Bulgaria was "the only country that signed a written contract 'to supply Jews to Germany, ' undertook to pay for their transport, and stipulated that she would never and under no circumstances request their return."
96, 96-I-96VI, 97-200 pp., 23 cm. With printed errata. Good-fair condition. Stains. Closed and open tears to corners and edges of cover and several leaves. Back cover detached. Open tears to spine. Handwritten inscriptions, postage stamps and inked stamps to cover.
Flower vase, painting by Arno Neumann. Theresienstadt, 1944.
Ink and watercolor on thin card. Signed and dated: "Arno Neumann / Terezin 1944". Enclosed is a card mount to which the work was formerly pasted; inked stamp on verso: "Jüdische Selbstverwaltung Theresienstadt" [Jewish self-government, Theresienstadt], and a suspension loop.
8.5X11.5 cm. Good condition. Minor stains. Pinholes to enclosed mount; strips of paper to margins (torn).
The Theresienstadt Ghetto was established in the town of Terezín, north-west Bohemia (today in the Czech Republic), within a former military fortress, dating to the 18th century. The overcrowded ghetto was mainly inhabited by Jewish deportees from central and northern Europe. Many of them were so called "prominent Jews" – artists, authors, composers, performers, and renowned intellectuals; approximately 160,000 Jews passed through the ghetto during WWII, tens of thousands had perished there, and some 88,000 were deported to extermination camps in the east.
Despite the harsh conditions, the ghetto's cultural life thrived. There were theatre performances, cabarets, concerts, lectures, schools for children (which were forbidden by the Nazis) and adult education programs, sport events, and more. Painters, writers, poets and various researchers and thinkers were active in the ghetto.
As a rule, those interned in the ghetto were subjected to forced labor – some in nearby mines and others in workshops within the ghetto, which produced toys, jewelry, bookmarks, various parchment products and paintings. The printing workshops in the ghetto produces a variety of learning materials and printed items required in the ghetto, as well as Nazi propaganda materials.
The Theresienstadt Ghetto played a pivotal part in the broad deception scheme designed by the Nazis to hide the existence of death camps in Poland. The creation of the "model ghetto", which was presented as a town under Jewish self-government, whose inhabitants seemingly lead comfortable, respectable lives, enjoying freedom and material abundance, was meant to serve one purpose: hiding the destruction of European Jewry from the international community, and from the Jews themselves, thus, facilitating their annihilation.
21 pencil drawings and one drawing in ink and colored pencils. Hand-signed and captioned (Italian). The illustrations depict some of the major battles that took place in Europe during the years 1942-1943: the Battle of Stalingrad, the Dieppe Raid, the Battle of Rzhev, the liberation of Kiev, and other battles.
Five of the illustrations are drawn on POW's notepaper, issued to prisoners in camp Notaresco (in Abruzzo; operated until 1944), presumably made during the war, or soon after. Considering the attention to detail and accuracy of execution – of license plates of vehicles and tanks, shapes of various weapons, uniforms, military ranks, etc. – the illustrations were probably made after photographs of the events depicted.
Enclosed: an illustration of two SS soldiers.
Luigi Fleischmann (1928-1999), author and partisan, native of Fiume (present day Rijeka, Croatia). During World War II he went in hiding together with his family, moving between several villages in the Abruzzo region of Southern Italy. He joined the ranks of the anti-fascist underground soon after it was erected, and became a partisan.
Size and condition vary (average size: approx. 29X21 cm; color illustration: 41X29 cm). Stains. Folding marks and minor creases. Marginal tears and pinholes (mostly minor). Large pen tear to top of one leaf (damage to drawing).
Special edition of the Palestine Post, printed on May 7th, 1945, the day the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany was signed in Reims, France (the second of three instruments of surrender signed by German representatives, during late April and early May, 1945.)
The subheading repeats a report by the German Flensburg radio, according to which, the German president, Admiral Doenitz, "has ordered the unconditional surrender of all German fighting troops."
[1] f. (two printed pages), 61.5 cm. Good condition. Horizontal fold line. Tears to margins and along fold line (mostly minor).
Included: • approximately 30 "orders, " written on official forms of Betar's company in the Dorfen DP camp (with signatures of the company's commander, inked stamp and the symbol of the seven-branched Menorah). 1947 (Yiddish, in Latin script.) • Handwritten notebook, containing a part of the aforementioned orders. 1947 (Yiddish, and some Hebrew.) • Photograph from the of the establishment of the company. Dedication on verso, dated to May 10, 1946. • Two UNRRA Immunization cards belonging to Menashe Rotberg, and his wife Mindla. 1947. • approximately 20 letters and documents, pertaining to attempts to locate Menashe's uncle, Hermann Rotberg (including negative answers with regards to the question of the uncle's whereabouts, received from the Joint, the Red Cross, the Belgian organization HISO, and other organizations), as well as attempts to receive reparations after it was established that Hermann perished during the war (1940s-1990s.) • Over 50 letters and documents of the correspondence between the Rotbergs and various German authorities, lawyers, and different organizations, regarding the couple's demand for reparations.
Approx. 100 paper items. Size and condition vary.