Palestine Mandate. 1940 Fall of France / incoming internee mail: 20 MAY 1940 uprated airmail postcard in German from Jewish internee at HURIEL camp in ALLIER province to business in HAIFA, franked 4.25Fr & tied by 3 strikes of local postmark + senders' round military unit cachet; marked by French military censor; backstamped 21 V 1940 MARSEILLE GARE (train station) dispatch - unclear if sent by air because of War & seaside dispatch locale. Sender was at "camp des Prestataires": per law 13 Jan. 1940 foreigners & stateless people receiving asylum were to be used as foreign workers at the service of the French Army. Huriel camp was established in a holiday camp site. Letter written May 18th: Antwerp & Brussels conquered, Allied forces in retreat to coastline. The seat of the coming Vichy government was located in Allier department as well. Rare origin & time. Interestingly, not censored in Palestine.

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Palestine Mandate. Wartime incoming civilian mail: 23-09-1940 uprated registered postcard in German on Soviet postal stationary, from Soviet-occupied LVOV to HAIFA, pre-franked 30Kop + additional 20Kop applied & tied by 2 strikes of local Soviet Post postmark + Polish registry handstamp; passed Haifa Palestine Censor H34 (Sach-Q24 - almost a year after his last known date of use; also recorded as being used only for outbound mail); front-stamped 29 OC 1940 HAIFA transit & next day arrival. Posted almost exactly a year (21 Sept 1939) after the occupation of the city by the USSR.

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Palestine Mandate. Wartime outbound civilian mail: 8 JAN 1941 surface mailed cover "in German" from JERUSALEM to addressee care of person NICE (unoccupied Zone, Vichy France - probably transient refugee), franked 15m Ba108 per period surface rate to non-UK destination & tied by local machine cancel; opened & resealed by Palestine Censor + "passed" on dispatch; backstamped 6 VI 1941 NICE R.P. arrival (6 month transit) & marked by French boxed censor cachet (#142); manuscript noted "left without leaving address" + boxed cachet on front/back & French "return to sender" instructional handstamp; front-stamped 26 SP 41 JERUSALEM arrival. Well travelled & documented, scarce destination; opened for display. Postal relations with France were restored but limited to "unoccupied" France (Vichy) and only to social, not business, correspondence on 30 July 1940; anti-Semitic legislation began already on 16 July with the "denaturalization law".

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Palestine Mandate. WWII/Holocaust-era internment camp mail: 21 MY 1948(!) postmarked family correspondence photographic postcard of sender's daughter ("aged 2½"), written in German, from TEL AVIV to grandmother ("savta") at Récébédou-Portet internment camp near TOULOUSE, franked 15m per postage period-7 13m overseas postcard rate (non-UK destination) & tied by single strike of local postmark with serious (undocumented) year-date error, may be 1941 or 1942 as postcard addressed "unoccupied France" ("Vichy France", pre-dates November 1942) & postage period began April 1941; passed T5 (or T6) Palestine censor in Tel Aviv (usage matches estmated dates of postcard) & postcard tied by oval cachet of the camp upon arrival. Recebedou was established in July 1940 as a reception centre for refugees and evacuated during the Battle of France & located in 87 former homes of workers of local weapons factories in the outskirts of TOULOUSE; in February 1941 the prefecture of Haute-Garonne took control of the camp and turned it into a hospital camp for the old & sick of GURS, originally well-equipped to care for them and then rapidly declined (2 doctors for 1400 internees); at the end of 1941, Rabbi René Samuel (Shmuel) Kapel (Kapelovitz) of Mulhouse (Resistance member; his father-in-law was Rabbi Moshe Avigdor Amiel, Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv; his brother-in-law was Rabbi Israel Salzer, Chief Rabbi of Marseille) was charged to bring supplies & religious services to Jews of the camp, 254 of whom died by Oct. 1942 when the remaining internees were deported and the camp closed. Rare Holocaust-era postal link + unusual postmark error.

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