us-005578-irn90020-irn8281
type: RecordSet
archival history: The postcard 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: a. First day cover postcard with a cachet of a stamp design, an adhered stamp, and a cancellation postmark. The cachet is an illustration featuring an orange and brown image of a stacked stone, chimney shaped memorial with a large basin on the top emitting a plume of smoke at a right angle, There is German text to the right and below. Adhered to the right is a stamp with perforated edges, 2.125 x 1.125 in., with the same image below a white panel with the value 20 (pfennig) and German text along the border. To the right is a stamped cancellation mark with treblinka in cut-out white text on a black field below the marks: BERLIN W8/ 20. 8. 63.-16. Printed on the back is a block of green text in the upper left, publication information in the center and right edges, and a large blank space for use. b. Unused, offwhite paper envelope with a letterhead printed in German on the front left corner. The triangular flap has an adhesive strip on the inside edge.
conditions of access: No restrictions on access
conditions of use: No restrictions on use
date: 1963 August 20
has or had holder: us-005578
has or had identifier: 1
has or had some members with language: deu
has or had subject: 2032
has record set type: Item
identifier: irn8281
is or was included in: us-005578-irn90020
record resource extent: a: Height: 4.125 inches (10.477 cm) | Width: 5.875 inches (14.923 cm) b: Height: 4.375 inches (11.113 cm) | Width: 6.375 inches (16.192 cm)
results or resulted from: 1
scope and content: First day cover postcard and envelope acquired by Raul Hilberg of the stamp issued to commemorate Treblinka killing center by the German Democratic Republic in 1963. This was the first stamp of a series issued annually by the DDR under the name Mahn- und Gedensksatte [Remembrance and Memorial Center] in honor of World War II (1939-1945). In July 1942, the Germans built Treblinka II, a killing center, near the village of Wolka Okraglik, Poland, about 50 miles north of Warsaw. Nearly 1 million Jews were killed at Treblinka II before it was closed in the fall of 1943. As Soviet troops moved into the area in late July 1944, camp authorities shot the remaining prisoners and evacuated the camp. Hilberg was a renowned scholar who published the first comprehensive study of the Holocaust and initiated the academic study of the Holocaust. He and his parents fled Vienna, Austria, after its annexation by Germany in March 1938. Almost all of his family members in Europe were murdered during the Holocaust.
title: First day cover stamp and envelope issued to commemorate Treblinka