Sur MeRa, by Rabbi Leon (Yehudah Aryeh) of Modena. Vilnius: Rozenkrants & Shriftzettser, 1903.
"Sur MeRa", a short composition on gambling written by Rabbi Leon of Modena in his youth – a copy from the Theresienstadt Ghetto library. On the book's back cover there is a paper label with the catalog number of the book in the ghetto library – "IC 3318" (the number also appears on the inside front binding, in handwriting). Two pages are stamped "Bibliothek der jüd. Gemeinde Berlin" – The library of the Berlin Jewish community.
The Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the Nazis in 1941 in the town Terezin in the Czech Republic. The large number of intellectual Jews imprisoned there led to the development of rich cultural life, which was most unusual for the ghettoes, and to the establishment of the Jewish library in the ghetto. The library opened to visitors in November 1942 and was managed by Emil Utitz, a professor of philosophy and psychology from the city of Prague, who held the position until the liberation. At first, it contained a modest collection of 4,000 books; however, it gradually expanded to include more than 65,000 books, in a variety of languages and on a variety of subjects. In 1943, when the Germans decided to turn the ghetto into a "model ghetto" in preparation for the visit of the Red Cross representatives, the library was moved to a large renovated building, where it remained until the end of the war.
40 pp, 13.5 cm. Good condition. Minor stains. Several small tears along the edges of the leaves. Cardboard binding with cloth spine. Stains and blemishes to binding.

Two photographs documenting the arrival of Haj Amin al-Husseini at the military airport in Banja Luka, before his first meeting with the Muslim volunteer unit to the German army. Banja Luka (Bosnia), [1943].
The photographs depict al-Husseini and another Muslim cleric crossing the airport in Banja Luka accompanied by military officers and officials. The photographs are captioned on verso in handwriting (German) and dated 1.4-18.4 (the year is not noted).
The photographs of the Mufti are accompanied by two photographs taken at another military airport – Sarajevo (captioned on verso in similar handwriting). Presumably, these are "unofficial" photographs taken by a pilot or mechanic of the German air force, who happened to be in the airport when the Mufti landed and decided to photograph him.
Muhammad Amin al-Husseini (1895-1974), more commonly known as Haj Amin al-Husseini, was a Muslim Arab leader during the British Mandate, who actively opposed Zionism and embraced anti-Semitic ideology. During the years 1921-1936, he served as the Mufti of Jerusalem. However, after the outbreak of the 1936-1939 Arab Revolt in Palestine (orchestrated in part by himself), he was forced to escape to Lebanon, from there to fascist Italy and eventually to Nazi Germany. His bonds with leaders of the Nazi party became stronger during his stay in Germany (he even met with Adolf Hitler several times) and in 1943, he assisted in recruiting Muslim fighters from the Balkans to the SS "Handschar" 13th Waffen Mountain Division.
Haj Amin al-Husseini's first visit to the Balkans took place during the months of March and April 1943 and was kept secret, away from the public eye. During the visit, al-Husseini met with local officers, representatives of the Muslim community and soldiers of the Muslim
volunteer unit. After his return to Berlin, he promised the leaders of the Nazi party to help recruit volunteers in return for an improvement in the conditions of the Muslim soldiers and the maintaining of the religious character of the unit. Several months later, al-Husseini again travelled to the Balkans, starting a campaign to recruit Muslim volunteers to the Nazi army.
4 photographs, approx. 6X9 cm. Good condition. Minor blemishes. Traces of glue on verso.

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: 16X10.5 cm. Postcards: 14X10 cm. Good condition. Two of the postcards are completely detached from the booklet while several others are partly detached. Creases to cover. Several stains on cover and postcards.
Provenance: The Raphael Grünzweig Collection.

Five photographs of members of the Representative Orchestra of the She'erit Hapletah. [Germany, the second half of the 1940s].
The Representative Orchestra of the She'erit Hapletah (also known as "The St. Ottilien Orchestra" and "The Ex-Concentration Camp Orchestra") was an orchestra of Jewish Holocaust survivors from DP camps conducted by Michael (Misha) Hofmekler. The first concert of the orchestra was held in 1945 at the St. Ottilien Monastery in Bavaria, which then served as a hospital and DP camp. From St. Ottilien, the orchestra moved to Landsberg and later expanded, changed its name and played in various locations in the American Zone in Germany. In May 1946, it was invited to play before the prosecutors and staff of the Nuremberg Trials. In May 1948, the orchestra performed in two concerts conducted by the well-known conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein (then the conductor of the Palestine Philharmonic Orchestra). For additional information about the orchestra, see enclosed article: Displaced Music: The Ex-Concentration Camp Orchestra in Postwar Germany, by Abbey Anderton (Journal of Musicological Research, 2015).
Before us are five photographs of the members of the orchestra: four group photographs and a photograph taken during the concert held by the orchestra for the prosecutors of the Nuremberg Trials in 1946. The photographs show members of the orchestra, including the conductor Michael (Misha) Hofmekler, in costumes made especially for their performances – concentration camp uniforms that were sewn for them after their liberation with their prisoner numbers on Stars of David.
5 photographs, approx. 6.5X9 cm. Good condition. A few stains (mostly on verso).

An album of 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 WW II (some earlier or later photographs and some family photographs) as well as approx. 25 documents, including: a release certificate of a prisoner in 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 (1946) in Germany; Driving license (Landsberg 1945); temporary ID issued by UNRRA (December 1946); Letter of recommendation written by the director of the Wilheim city theater, April 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.