us-005578-irn72754-irn522320
type: RecordSet
archival history: The scrip was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2003 by Dr. Adrienne Friede Krausz.
biographical history: Adrienne Matyas was born on May 20, 1923, in Cluj [Cluj-Napoca), Romania, to Akos and Tereza Matyas. Both of her parents were general surgeons with successful medical practices. Akos was born in Nagyenyed on September 21, 1893, to Mihai and Laura Sperber Matyas. Mihai was a physician. Akos had 2 sisters, Miczi and Irma, who married Simon Racz and had 2 children, Eva and Ilona. Tereza was born in Gyergy-Ditro on June 18, 1898, to Albert and Anna Stark Matyas. Albert was a gentleman farmer. Tereza had 3 older brothers, and 1 older and 2 younger sisters. All of her siblings had Gentile spouses. Matyas, the eldest, was a physician with a private 200 bed hospital, his wife was a Catholic opera singer. Another brother was a surgeon, and one a lawyer, her younger sisters married Romanians, a diplomat and colonel. Tereza graduated from medical school in 1920. She and Akos married Akos circa 1922. Adrienne’s sister Mariette was born on April 18, 1933. The family was prosperous and assimilated. Adrienne had governesses from France, Germany, and England, and she learned those languages as well as Hungarian and Romanian. When Adrienne was 10, she decided she wanted to learn about Judaism and went to a rabbi who let her enroll in weekly classes. Romania had a long tradition of vicious antisemitism which increased with rise of Nazi Germany. On August 30, 1940, northern Transylvania, which included Cluj, was reassigned to Hungary by the Second Vienna Award, arbitrated by Germany. After years of near civil war, the loss of this territory forced King Carol to abdicate that September. General Antonescu and the fascist Iron Guard came to power and Romania joined the Axis Alliance. Jewish businesses were confiscated, property destroyed, and there were anti-Jewish pogroms throughout the country. Adrienne, in her final year of high school, transferred to a Hungarian Presbyterian school. In the late 1930s, the Hungarian government had enacted anti-Jewish laws similar to Germany’s Nurember…
physical characteristics and technical requirements: Rectangular, light brown paper coupon with German text, the serial number 92948, and the denomination -.50 printed over a pale green, floral patterned, scallop edged rectangle within a narrow, blank border. SS camp identification is stamped diagonally right of center. The scrip is creased, soiled, and has several small tears. front, right, stamped, purple ink : Waffen SS / K. L. Buchenwald / [Arb.-Kdo. Altenburg]
conditions of access: No restrictions on access
conditions of use: No restrictions on use
date: 1944 October-1945 April
has or had holder: us-005578
has or had identifier: 1
has or had some members with language: deu
has or had subject: 46
has record set type: Item
identifier: irn522320
is or was included in: us-005578-irn72754
record resource extent: overall: Height: 2.875 inches (7.303 cm) | Width: 4.125 inches (10.478 cm)
results or resulted from: 1
scope and content: -.50 Reichsmark Buchenwald Aussenkommando [Outside Command] scrip issued to 21 year old Adrienne Matyas in 1945 when she was imprisoned in Waffen SS Ko. Altenburg concentration camp in Germany. The coupons were issued as an incentive to slave laborers, although there was nothing to acquire in the camp with them. Adrienne was from Cluj, Romania, in northern Transylvania, which was placed under Hungarian rule in August 1940. Hungary was occupied by Nazi Germany in March 1944. That June, Adrienne, her parents Asok and Tereza, both physicians, and her 11 year old sister, were deported from Cluj to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland. Her parents and sister were sent to the gas chambers upon arrival. Adrienne worked cleaning latrines until August 1944 when she and a friend snuck onto a block that was transported to Ravensbrueck concentration camp in Germany. From there, she was transferred to Altenburg, a subcamp of Buchenwald, where she was a slave laborer in a HASAG munitions factory. On April 11, 1945, as US forces approached, the camp was evacuated. The prisoners were sent on a death march to Waldenburg where they were liberated by American troops. Adrienne returned to Cluj, where she married and completed her medical studies. In 1963, Dr. Krausz testified at the trial of Dr. Victor Capesius, who assigned her family to the gas chambers. She also testified as an eyewitness at the trial of the kapo, Mulka, for the burning of the Roma camp at Birkenau while all the inmates were inside.
title: Buchenwald Aussenkommando coupon for SS Ko. Altenburg, -.50 Reichsmark issued to a Jewish female slave laborer