Germany. Holocaust / Camp mail: 4-9-1941 AUSCHWITZ stationary envelope (Simon T.2) from male inmate to wife(?) in KÖNIGSHÜTTE (Germany), franked 12pf single frank tied by AUSCHWITZ (OBERSCHLES) 2 postmark and marked by the Camp's postal representative with red boxed cachet; cut open at top. The camp (Auschwitz I) was originally established in May 1940 to house Polish political prisoners and began exterminating inmates in September 1941 (same month as this cover); construction on Auschwitz II-Birkenau began in October 1941 to ease congestion at the main camp.

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Germany. Holocaust / Camp mail: 17-4-1944 AUSCHWITZ stationary letter-envelope from male inmate Georg Kopyto to wife(?) in HOHENLINDE (Bytom - Upper Silesia), franked 12pf single per peried rate & tied by full strike of AUSCHWITZ (OBERSCHLES) 3 postmark. Cover contains 9-4-1944 dated letter in German & stamped inside by camp censor; pieces of the bottom and top of each page have been cut - censored? Sender is identified as "schutzhäftling" - protected prisoner? - at the "labor camp" MONOWITZ (Monowitz-Buna / Auschwitz III), one of the 3 main camps of the Auschwitz complex; Primo Levy and Eli Wiesel were inmates here. Sender may be related to Hersch Harry Kopyto, a now disbarred Canadian lawyer "born to a Polish Jewish family, in a Displaced Persons' camp in Ulm" Germany in 1946. Folded twice horizontally.

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Germany. Postwar/Holocaust Jewish mail: 31 JUL 1946 commercial cover from Jewish Agency at UNRRA Team 311 (LANDSBERG) to HAIFA, franked 5c & tied by scarce US Army APO 61 postmark (note odd "61"); slit open at right, tear top left of flap, complete. Oddly the return address references "Central HQ BAOR" even though Team 311 & APO 61 were assigned to Landsberg in US Zone. Interesting cover: the Jewish Agency for Palestine served as the "government" for the Jewish community in Palestine (the 'Yishuv'), whose aims for bringing Jews to Palestine was at odds with the British Mandate's policy, and whose various activities in many fields earned its members the image of "derring-do". In effect this cover is an example of pre-State "Jewish government mail" from abroad.

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