us-005578-irn90020-irn8275
type: RecordSet
archival history: The scrip was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1993 by Raul Hilberg.
biographical history: Raul Hilberg was born on June 2, 1926, in Vienna, Austria, the only child of Jewish parents. His father Michael fought and was wounded in the First World War (1914-1918). In Vienna, he had a business selling household goods to people on installment plans. His parents attended synagogue occasionally. Raul was never religious, but he did attend a Zionist school. In March 1938, Nazi Germany annexed Austria and soon passed legislation to strip Jews of their rights as citizens. The family was ordered out of their apartment by gunpoint. His father was arrested during Kristallnacht, September 9-10 1938, but was soon released because he was a World War I veteran. The family left Austria and after stopovers in France and Cuba, reached Brooklyn, NY, on September 1, 1939. Michael worked in a factory and Hilberg attended Lincoln High School. He enrolled in Brooklyn College until enlisting in the Army in 1944. He was deployed to Germany in 1945 with the 45th infantry division. He served with an Oklahoma division that liberated Dachau, but was not with the unit at the time. He was with the first troops that entered Munich. He was later assigned to the Army documentation division, which needed staff fluent in German. The war ended in May 1945. Nearly all the members of Hilberg's family on both his mother's and father's side were murdered during the Holocaust. Postwar, Hilberg assisted in the search for German documents to aid the prosecution at the war crimes trials. His unit was housed in the Nazi Party’s former offices in Munich. Crates containing Hitler’s personal library were stored there and Hilberg was fascinated by the contents. After his discharge, he returned to Brooklyn College and changed his major from chemistry to history and political science, graduating in 1948. He then focused on political science and international law and completed a master’s in public law in 1950 at Columbia University. He taught at Hunter College and then obtained a federal job in the War Docume…
physical characteristics and technical requirements: Theresienstadt scrip printed on rectangular, offwhite paper in black, light blue, and green-blue ink. The face has a vignette of Moses, a bearded man with a wrinkled brow, holding 2 stone tablets with the 10 Commandments in Hebrew. To the right is the denomination 50 and German text. The background rectangle has an abstract repeating pattern. On the right side is a wide offwh, the border with 50 in the bottom corner below a Star of David. The reverse has a background rectangle with a blue zigzag pattern with an orange center streak, overprinted with German text, an engraved signature, and a large scrollwork line. The denomination 50 is in the upper right corner. On the left side is a wide offwhite border with 50 in the bottom corner below a Star of David in a lined circle. The serial number is in red in the upper left corner. The series letter in red ink is on the lower right. Scrip is not worn but it is discolored, with a brown stain line along the top edge and smaller brown stains and black smudged marks.
conditions of access: No restrictions on access
conditions of use: No restrictions on use
date: 1943 January 01
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: irn8275
is or was included in: us-005578-irn90020
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: 50 (funfzig) mark Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp note given to Raul Hilberg by Frank Petschek, who, with his wife, as well as the extended Petschek family, had to flee Czechoslovakia after its annexation by Nazi Germany in fall 1938. After the war, the confiscation of the Petschek family's vast business and land holdings by the Nazi regime were used for a major case in the War Criminals trials at Nuremberg. Hilberg and his parents fled Vienna, Austria, after its annexation by Germany in March 1938. It was Petschek's generosity that made possible the publication of Hilberg's landmark work, Destruction of the European Jews, in 1961, a foundational and authoritative study of the Holocaust. The scrip was issued in Theresienstadt in German occupied Czechoslovakia beginning in May 1943. Inmates were not allowed to have currency and the SS ordered the Jewish Council to design scrip for use only in the camp. It was issued to create a false appearance of normalcy and as an incentive for forced labor. There was little to obtain with the scrip. Notes were printed in 7 denominations: 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100. The camp was in operation from November 24, 1941, until early May 1945. Approximately 140,000 Jewish men, women, and children were transferred to Theresienstadt; nearly 90,000 were then deported, likely to their death further east. About 33,000 Jews died in Theresienstadt.
title: Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp scrip, 50 kronen note, acquired by Czech refugee