Reviewing: “Holocaust Postal History: Harrowing Journeys Revealed Through the Letters and Cards of the Victims,” by Justin Gordon. Six Point Watermark. Hardcover, 170 pages, 2017. ISBN-13: 978-0-9978401-0-0.
There is no simple way to investigate, present or begin to explain the massive tragedy and horror of the Holocaust. So we painstakingly pluck it apart the best we can to cope with and understand this horrific chapter in human history.
Author Justin Gordon learned about stamp collecting when he was 8. He started learning about the Holocaust a few years later when his cantor, a concentration camp survivor, shared stories as the young Justin learned the text for his bar mitzvah. After he became an optometrist, Gordon came upon a philatelic exhibit focused on documents from World War II Holocaust sites Auschwitz and the Warsaw ghetto. His philatelic path became clear, and now he has created Holocaust Postal History to help shed some light.
“It is all too easy to see the 6 million Jewish victims as a whole, rather than as individuals occupied with the ordinary aspects of life, just as we are,” writes the author in his introduction. “And what could be more ordinary than a postcard or an envelope? These seemingly nondescript items, known to stamp collectors as covers, are in some cases the only remaining fragments of people’s lives, as you will see in the pages of this book. They reveal more about not only the individual caught in the machinery of death, but also the exact historical moment when one person reached out in desperation to another in the hopes of receiving help, encouragement or simply news that a loved one was still alive.”
The main chapters are “The Beginning of the Journey,” “Anti-Semitic Laws,” “Der ewige Jude,” “Ghettos,” “Theresienstadt,” “Concentration Camps,” “Judenarbeitslager,” “Unsung Heroes” and “Journey’s End.” In “Ghettos,” we find information about the post office in Warsaw, which was overseen by the Judenrat, the Jewish government within the ghetto. “All monies collected by the ghetto post office from selling postage stamps, sending packages, and so on, went to the Deutsche Post Osten … Therefore, the ghetto postal authorities instituted a surcharge on all postal services, including delivery of letters, packages, and telegrams … These funds were used to pay the postal employees.” The chapter shows cards with ghetto censor markings, cancellations and receiving marks.
In “Concentration Camps,” the author briefly illustrates and tells the tale of Mina Mandler (1887–1944), who was held both at Theresienstadt and Auschwitz. “ … On March 2, 1944, Mandler was given several postcards. She addressed them, wrote messages on the cards, and followed the Nazi order to date them March 25, due to the amount of time it took for the censors to review them. On March 8, she was gassed… Her cards continued to be sent out after her murder.”
Breakout sections within chapters offer technical details (sizes, colors etc.) and explain things like types of camps, postal markings (“Incoming Ghetto Mail Receiving Marks”), reply-instruction and ghetto receiving cachets and camp censor markings. Color illustrated glossaries of philatelic terms and stamps in relation to the main topic help further explain the material. A 12-page bibliography is a testament to the years of dedicated research the author has spent on the topic.
Gordon’s thoughtful and easy-to-read text offers short lessons and commentary—both philatelic and historical—throughout. Each cover presented is well interpreted in captions that describe or explain stamps, overprints, postmarks and ancillary markings.
The book is a superb effort to present an extremely difficult and complex topic in a modern, clear fashion that both educates and moves the soul.
“ … The covers in this book speak a more personalized testimony to the lives of these victims in one of history’s crimes,” writes Gordon. “Peruse this book with reverence.”
Available through Holocaust Postal History (holopostal.com).
By Jeff Stage/American Philatelist,
www.stamps.org(printed with permission)
