Overview
- Brief Narrative
- Łódź ghetto scrip, 2 mark note, acquired by Klara Schwarz (later Clara Kramer) at an unknown date; origin is also unknown as she was never a Łódź Ghetto resident. After Nazi Germany occupied Łódź in September 1939, it was renamed Litzmannstadt. When the ghetto was set up, currency was confiscated in exchange for Quittungen [receipts] that could be exchanged only in the ghetto. Klara was 12 when her hometown of Zolkiew, Poland, (later Zhovkva, Ukraine) was occupied. In December 1942, Klara, her sister Manja, and her parents went into hiding in a bunker under the home of an ethnic German family, Valentin and Julia Beck and daughter Ala. In April 1943, Manja sister was caught and killed by the Germans when she fled the bunker during a block fire. The region was liberated in July 1944. Klara went to a displaced person' camp in Austria, where she married and then emigrated to Israel in 1948.
- Date
-
issue:
approximately 1940 May 15
- Geography
-
issue:
Litzmannstadt-Getto (Łódź, Poland);
Łódź (Poland)
- Credit Line
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Clara Kramer, in memory of her sister Mania
- Markings
- face, serial number, upper right, orange ink : Nº 178721
face, center, brown ink : Quittung / über / Zwei Mark / Der Aelteste der Juden / in Litzmannstadt / M. Rumkowski / Litzmannstadt, den 15 Mai 1940 [[Receipt for Two Mark / The Eldest of the Jews in Litzmannstadt M Rumkowski Litzmannstadt, May 15 1940]
face, lower right corner, brown ink : 2
back, center, brown ink : Quittung / über / Zwei-Mark
back, left and right center, brown ink : 2
back, lower center, brown ink : WER DIESE QUITTUNG VERFÄLSCHT ODER NACH. / MACHT ODER GEFÄLSCHTE QUITTUNGEN IN / VERKEHR BRINGT / WIRD STRENGSTENS BESTRAFT [ANYONE WHO FALSIFIES OR COPIES THIS RECEIPT, OR TRAFFICS IN COUNTERFEIT RECEIPTS, WILL BE STRICTLY PUNISHED]
back, lower left corner, brown ink : 2 - Contributor
-
Subject:
Clara Kramer
Issuer: Der Aelteste der Juden in Litzmannstadt
- Biography
-
Klara Schwarz in Żółkiew, Poland (now Zhovkva, Ukraine) in 1927 to Meir and Salka Reizfeld Schwarz. She had a sister Manja. In September 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union invaded and Zolkiew was occupied by the Soviets. In June 1941, Germany attacked the Soviet Union. In December 1942, the Schwarz family went into hiding in a secret bunker under the home of an ethnic German family, Valentin and Julia Beck and their daughter Ala. Manja was caught and killed when she fled the bunker during a block fire in April 1943. The region was liberated in July 1944. Clara and her family went ot a disaplced persons home in Austria where Klara met and married Sol Kramer (1920-2011). They emigrated to Israel in 1948. Clara and Sol later immigrated to the United States in 1957.
Physical Details
- Language
- German
- Classification
-
Exchange Media
- Category
-
Money
- Object Type
-
Scrip (aat)
- Physical Description
- Łódź scrip on rectangular, offwhite paper printed in brown and orange ink. The face has an abstract trellis patterned underprint. The denomination 2 is in the lower right corner. There is a 1.25 inch right margin, then a bordered rectangle with a background of interlocked Stars of David with a large Star of David in a circle in the upper left corner. A smaller Star of David within a brown square and the serial number in orange ink replace the right border. In the center is the denomination Zwei Mark and German text. The back has the denomination 2 in the lower left corner. There is a 1.25 inch left margin, then a bordered rectangle with a background of interlocked Stars of David. In the center is a 7 branched menorah flanked by the denomination 2 within a set of 9 concentric rings overlaid by a banner with the denomination Zwei-Mark. The scrip is faded, with tears along the center crease.
- Dimensions
- overall: Height: 2.625 inches (6.668 cm) | Width: 4.750 inches (12.065 cm)
- Materials
- overall : paper, ink
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- No restrictions on access
- Conditions on Use
- No restrictions on use
Keywords & Subjects
- Topical Term
- Holocaust survivors--United States--Biography. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Poland--Personal narratives, Jewish. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Ukraine--Personal narratives, Jewish. Jews--Persecutions--Ukraine--Poland--Biography. Jews--Rescue--Ukraine--Biography. Righteous Gentiles in the Holocaust--Poland--Biography.
- Geographic Name
- Poland--History--Occupation, 1939-1945.
Administrative Notes
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- The scrip was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1994 by Clara Kramer.
- Funding Note
- The cataloging of this artifact has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
- Record last modified:
- 2022-07-28 18:22:29
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn8893
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Also in Clara Kramer collection
The collection consist of one piece of Łódź ghetto scrip, a wartime diary, an autograph book, biographical materials, and photographs relating to the experiences of Clara Kramer during the Holocaust while in hiding, as well as pre-Holocaust friendships and postwar nursing training and work in displaced persons camps.
Date: approximately 1940-1951
Clara Kramer papers
Document
The Clara Kramer papers consist of a wartime diary written in hiding, an autograph book, biographical materials, and photographs documenting Kramer’s experience in hiding during the war as well as pre‐Holocaust friendships and postwar nursing training and work in displaced persons camps and in Israel. Clara Kramer’s diary contains daily accounts of her life in a hidden bunker from April 1943 through their liberation written in notebooks given to her by the family’s protector, Valentin Beck. The diary describes cramped living conditions, meager food supplies, frequent threats of discovery, and the death of Kramer’s sister. The autograph book includes autographs, messages, poems, and drawings by Kramer’s childhood friends. Biographical materials consist of certificates and memoranda documenting Kramer’s training and service as a nurse in and around displaced persons camps in Linz, Steyr, and Bad Reichenall as well as affidavits documenting the identities and marriage of Sol Kramer’s parents, Berisch and Ethel Kramer. Photographs depict Clara Kramer’s childhood friends and the Żółkiew synagogue. These photographs were removed from the autograph book described above.
