Three Banknotes Used in Labor Camps During the Holocaust

Three Banknotes Used in Labor Camps During the Holocaust

Three banknotes used as legal tender in camps during the Holocaust.

 

* Banknotes with a face value of 0.50 Reichsmark, used by SS personnel at the canteen in the Buchenwald camp. Moderate-fine condition.

 

* Two banknotes with a face value of 0.01 Reichsmark used in the Dora-Mittelbau labor camp, fine condition.

 

Dora-Mittelbau (KZ-Dora-Mittelbau also called Mittlebau-Dora, or Nordhausen) served as a Nazi labor camp during the period of the Holocaust. The camp was located in central Germany near Nordhausen. The laborers were forced to produce V-2 missiles in underground factories. Of about 60,000 prisoners "employed" at the labor camp by forced labor, it is estimated that 20,000 were killed. Exhaustion from the hard labor, terrible sanitation conditions, executions and hunger were the principle causes of death. It was the central labor camp; it had approximately forty sub-camps. The prisoners were left in tunnels 24 hours a day, without seeing any daylight, in very harsh working conditions, without even minimal security or welfare. Work was six days a week in 12-hour shifts. The prisoners suffered from cold and hunger and from the brutality of the German workers.

Although the SS actually ran the camp, the Metalwork company which manufactured the missiles supplied the prisoners with shoes and other items, and the prisoners had the right to buy in a "canteen."