- Brief Narrative
- Scrip, valued at 5 kronen, issued in 1943 in Theresienstadt (Terezin) ghetto-labor camp acquired by Mordecai E. Schwart. Schwartz, a soldier in the United States Army, was recruited after the war ended in May 1945 to serve as Area Director for UNRRA. He worked for UNRRA until 1948, when the organization was deactivated. He then became Area Director for the International Refugee Organization (IRO), supervising twenty-eight displaced persons camps in Germany. The DP camps were set up to house and feed, and to provide medical service and legal protection for survivors of the concentration and slave labor camps, and to offer them the chance to reestablish their lives postwar. When IRO was deactivated in 1951, Mordecai was recruited by US Air Force Intelligence. The scrip was issued in Terezin as all currency was confiscated from deportees upon entry and replaced with scrip and ration coupons that could be exchanged only in the camp. The Theresienstadt camp existed for 3.5 years, from November 24, 1941 to May 9, 1945. It was located in a region of Czechoslovakia occupied by Germany, renamed the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and made part of the Greater German Reich.
- Date
-
issue:
1943 January 01
- Geography
-
issue:
Theresienstadt (Concentration camp);
Terezin (Ustecky kraj, Czech Republic)
received:
Germany
- Credit Line
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Mordecai E. Schwartz
- Markings
- front, upper center, printed in brown ink : QUITTUNG ÜBER / FÜNF KRONEN [RECEIPT OF / FIVE CROWNS]
front, lower center, printed in middle text then above in brown ink : 5
front, lower center, smaller text than above, printed in brown ink : WER DIESE QUITTUNG VERFÄLSCHT ODER NACHMACHT / ODER GEFÄLSCHTE QUITTUNGEN IN VERKEHR BRINGT. / WIRD STRENGSTENS BESTRAFT [ANYONE WHO FALSIFIES OR DISTORTS OR FAKES THIS RECEIPT, OR COUNTERFEITS RECEIPT, WILL BE STRICTLY PUNISHED]
reverse, upper left in border, plate letter and number, printed in brown ink : A024
reverse, center, printed in brown ink : Quittung / über / FÜNF KRONEN [Receipt / of / FIVE CROWNS]
reverse, lower center, printed in brown ink : THERESIENSTADT, AM 1.JANNER 1943 DER ALTESTE DER JUDEN / IN THERESIENSTADT [THERESIENSTADT, ON 1. JANUARY 1943 THE ELDER OF THE JEWS IN THERESIENSTADT]
reverse, bottom right, printed in brown ink : Jakob Edelstein
- Contributor
-
Subject:
Mordecai E. Schwartz
- Biography
-
Mordecai E. Schwartz had a college degree in business adminstration and was fluent in six languages when he enlisted in the United States Army in 1942. After the war ended in May 1945, he was stationed in Munich, Germany, and was recruited by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). He requested and was granted a European discharge from the US Army and became the Area Director for UNRRA in the US Zone in Germany from 1945 to 1948. Upon the deactivation of UNRRA in 1948, he was transferred and made Area Director for the International Refugee Organization (IRO), supervising twenty-eight displaced persons camps in Germany. The displaced persons camps were set up to house and feed, and to provide medical service, and legal protection for survivors of the concentration and slave labor camps, and to offer them the chance to reestablish their lives postwar. When IRO was deactivated in 1951, Mordecai was recruited by US Air Force Intelligence in Munich and served in their worldwide operations until his retirement with highest honors.
