Buchenwald

In the mid-eighteenth century, the town of Weimar was a seat of the German Enlightenment. It was home to some of the greatest German minds, including Goethe, Schiller, and Bach. However, Weimar also would become the site of Buchenwald, one of the largest concentration camps inside the 1937 German borders.

The camp, built to house opponents of the Nazi regime, was constructed by the prisoners themselves. After Kristallnacht and the beginning of the war, it became a major camp that incarcerated Polish and Soviet prisoners.

On this postcard, sent from the Buchenwald concentration camp, the Israel middle name identifies the sender as a Jewish inmate.  The card is dated November 11, 1942, and has brief preprinted instructions to the recipient, indicating that “I am only allowed to write and receive one letter every 4 weeks.”

Mail into the concentration camps is even rarer than mail sent out by Jews because after it was delivered to the inmates, it was collected and destroyed. The cover shown has the Israel middle name and was sent into Buchenwald. So how did this item survive? My theory is Max “Israel” Steinhauser was arrested on Kristallnacht in November 1938 and was released in June 1939, the same as the cancel on the stamp. Hitler released thousands of Jews a few months after their arrest, requiring them to leave the country. I believe that Mr. Steinhauser was one of those individuals and was able to sneak the letter out of Buchenwald when he left.

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