Numismatics, philately, medallic art

Numismatics, philately, medallic art

This is the largest section of the Museum’s collections, which consists chiefly of the correspondence kept by POWs of different nationalities interned in the German captivity during World War 2. It includes letters, cards and postal money transfers handled by the official camp post-office, which were written on characteristic forms that the POWs were allowed to send out of their camps and receive from outside. The correspondence comes from different places of soldiers’ isolation: dulags, oflags, stalags and labor units. The collection of philately includes also the so-called internal mail which functioned with all the postal rules being respected within individual POW camps. We find here handmade postcards, stamps and date stamps, most often executed as woodcuts. They come from a few different POW camps, the majority of which being those from two large oflags: II C Woldenberg and II D Gross Born.

The next group of the philately collection consists of the correspondence kept by the Polish soldiers interned in Switzerland. These are, among others, requests of the interned sent to charity organizations to have their families searched for, especially those who were staying on the territory occupied by the USSR, following the outbreak of the German-Soviet War in 1941, or were deported from it. The collection abounds also with Polish stamps and postal cards issued already after the War to commemorate its victims.

The philately offers an unusually valuable collection, since it makes an important source of information on the life of interned POWs and on the functioning of the German POW system and internment camps in Switzerland. This is indeed a very interesting element of the history of postal services. The philatelic value of the collection is heightened due to the variety of post stamps, correspondence prints, camp censors’ stamps, etc.

Beside the items of philately, a vital part of the Museum’s collection is made of numismatics, chiefly coins found in the areas of Stalags: VIII B, 318/VIII F and 344 Lamsdorf. They come from various countries, among others, the USSR, India, Canada, Greece. They belonged to the POWs detained here during World War 2. There are a lot of other tenders as well, that is substitute money – the so-called lagermarks – from the time of World War 2, which were in circulation in all the POW camps located on the territory of the Third Reich. We include into the numismatics collection also pay slips and receipts of payment of POWs’ wages, coming from different stalags. It is worth paying attention to the original lagermarks from the years of World War 1, which were used in the Lamsdorf POW camp at that time. Because of the specific history of Łambinowice, other substitute moneys which had been in use in the area of the Lamsdorf military range until 1922 are extremely valuable, too.

The part of the Museum’s collection connected with medallic art is less numerous. It consists of occasional medals of the Central Museum of Prisoners-of-War, which were minted on the occasion of successive jubilees of the institution.