us-005578-irn624324-irn633651
type: RecordSet
archival history: The scrip was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2018 by Judith Marx, the daughter of Hans Benjamin Marx.
biographical history: Hans Benjamin Marx (b. 1927) was born in Mannheim, Germany, to Elise (née Rihm, 1898-1976) and Ernest Marx (1895-1965). Ernest was born in Mannheim, and worked as a traveling salesman. Elise was born in Mannheim to Protestant parents, but converted to Orthodox Judaism prior to marrying Ernest. Hans’s had one older sister, Claire (Klara, 1925-2009). The family moved to Frankfurt am Main in the early spring of 1932. Han’s mother wanted to raise her children fully Jewish. Hans’s father, however, was less religiously inclined, resulting in Hans and his sister belonging to an Orthodox congregation while growing up in a home that was not especially observant. They celebrated some Jewish holidays, but did not follow kosher rules. Hans’s father refused to go to the synagogue, and instead of observing the Sabbath the children attended school on Saturdays. Less than three months after Hitler came to power in January 1933, Hans enrolled in first grade in his neighborhood public school. Following the September 15, 1935, passage of the Nuremberg Laws, Hans and Claire, as offspring of a mixed marriage, were classified as Geltungsjude, Jews by law. In 1938, Jewish children were barred from public schools, and Hans and Claire had to travel nearly an hour by bus and streetcar to get to their new school. On November 9 and 10, during the Kristallnacht pogrom, the family’s synagogue was robbed, along with local Jewish businesses. On November 11, the Gestapo showed up at the Marx house and arrested Hans’s father, Ernest, and then deported him to Buchenwald concentration camp, where he was assigned prisoner number 29361. Hans and his mother and sister were forced out of their house in order to make their neighborhood Judenrein, free of Jews, by the end of the month. They had to sell off most of their costlier furniture and possessions and move into a designated Jewish building. Ernest returned from Buchenwald on December 8. He was released because he had a visa for Switzerland, and promi…
physical characteristics and technical requirements: Theresienstadt scrip printed on rectangular, off-white paper in blue and black ink. The paper contains a watermark in the form of a repeating geometric pattern. On the face is a rectangle with geometric patterning and a wide, off-white margin to the right. On the left, within the rectangle, is a vignette with an image of Moses holding 2 stone tablets inscribed with the 10 Commandments in Hebrew. To his right, is the denomination centered between lines of German text. In the lower right corner is a Star of David with the denomination below. The reverse has a rectangle with geometric patterning and a wide, off-white margin to the left. Within the rectangle is a central brown streak, medallion, German text above and below a scrollwork line, the denomination on the upper right, and signature on the lower right. In the lower left corner is the denomination below a Star of David in a striped circle. The serial number in the upper left corner and the series letter on the lower right are both in red ink. There are large, horizontal and vertical creases at the center, and the corners are creased and have brown discoloration.
conditions of access: No restrictions on access
conditions of use: No restrictions on use
date: 1943 January 01, after 1945 February 14-before 1945 May 08
has or had holder: us-005578
has or had identifier: 1
has or had some members with language: deu
has or had some members with language: heb
has record set type: Item
identifier: irn633651
is or was included in: us-005578-irn624324
record resource extent: overall: Height: 2.750 inches (6.985 cm) | Width: 5.500 inches (13.97 cm)
results or resulted from: 1
scope and content: Scrip, valued at 50 kronen, distributed in Theresienstadt (Terezin) ghetto-labor camp to Hans Benjamin Marx, who was imprisoned at the camp between February 18 and May 8, 1945. At the camp, Hans was issued 50 kronen of ghetto money, which he only used as a deposit when he checked out books from the ghetto library. Hans spent most of the war in Frankfurt with his older sister, Claire, and their mother, Elise. Elise was a Protestant, but converted to Judaism before getting married to Hans’s father, Ernest. In November 1938, following the Kristallnacht pogrom, Ernest was arrested and transported to Buchenwald concentration camp. In December, Ernest was released and promised to leave the country within two weeks. He spent the rest of the war in Egypt. Because Hans was a child from a mixed marriage and classified as Geltungsjude, Jewish by law, he was subject to anti-Jewish restrictions beginning in 1935. After eight years of elementary school, 14-year-old Hans became a carpentry apprentice. In January 1945, Hans turned 18 and could no longer be protected by his mother’s Aryan status. On February 14, 1945, he was deported to Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp in German-occupied Czechoslovakia. As a forced laborer, Hans helped to build an alleged air raid shelter, and tried to sabotage it. On May 8, 1945, the Red Army liberated the camp. In June, Hans returned to Frankfurt and reunited with his mother and sister. They immigrated to the United States on June 6, 1946, and reunited there with his father in 1947.
title: Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp scrip, 50 kronen note, given to German Jewish prisoner