F04_P15: Extermination Camp Chelmno
1942 April 30, Front side - Post card from Adolf Peine in Hamburg, Germany inquiring about a payment he made.
Tan post card with printed text and outline in German using purple ink. Typed text in German using black ink is present. In the top right corner, a purple 6-pfennig imprinted stamp depicting Adolf Hitler facing to the right is present. Overtop, a cancellation dated April 30, 1942 appears.
Name/Title
F04_P15: Extermination Camp ChelmnoEntry/Object ID
2008.4.80Scope and Content
1942 April 30, post card from Adolf Peine in Hamburg, Germany inquiring about a payment he made.Context
An old palatial estate at Chelmno, Poland (Kulmhof in German), about 70 kilometers west of Łódź, became the first Nazi camp dedicated exclusively to mass killings by gas. The first commandant of Chelmno was Herbert Lange, who previously had administered the Nazis’ euthanasia program. The first transport of Jews arrived at Chelmno on December 7, 1941; there they were suffocated to death by exhause fumes of sealed vans. A frequent visitor to Chelmno was Hans Biebow, Nazi ruler of the Litzmannstadt (Łódź) Jewish ghetto. By war’s end, an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 people, mostly Jews from Łódź and the surrounding Warthegau district, had been put to death at Chelmno. No mail was allowed. Operations continued until January 17, 1945, when the Red Army approached. On an April 30, 1942, postal card from Hamburg, Germany, Adolf Peine inquired of the Nazi ghetto rulers at Litzmannstadt concerning a 50-reichsmark payment he had sent to Berta Rüchersberg, a ghetto inmate, which had not been acknowledged. At that time, ghetto residents were forbidden to send mail to outsiders, to prevent news about the deportations and panic in the ghetto from reaching the outside world. From mid-January to mid-May of 1942, 66 transports carried 54,990 Jews from the Litzmannstadt ghetto to the Chelmno extermination camp, where they were gassed to death. The card has a May 4 boxed receiving handstamp of Biebow’s ghetto administration at the left.Collection
Nazi Scourge II: Five Frame ExhibitCategory
Post Card
Philatelic Material