JANUARY 2016 NO:- 122 EDITOR: garygoodman@talktalk.net Website for previous issues Index ANA VINOCUR: A HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR HONOURED ON STAMP FROM URUGUAY RABBI ISIDORO AIZENBERG Is there a title that would be able to include and express a narrative regarding mass murder and the extermination of a people? This is the lone moving preface on an otherwise blank page preceding the usual title page in Ana Vinocur s volume written in Spanish entitled Sin título: Testimonio de una sobreviviente del holocausto judío (Montevideo, Uruguay, 2002), that is, Without a Title: A Survivor s Testimony of the Jewish Holocaust. In one of the closing paragraphs of her book (p. 218), Vinocur returns to the preface, underlining that those who read this book will [now] realize [why] it is impossible to give it a title, warning its readers to not mistake [this book] with a novel, for this is a true story among the thousands that existed in the time of the Nazis and it is only a brief sketch of what really took place. Sin título had seven editions, including five in Mexico and one in an English translation in 1976. Ana Benkel de Vinocur (in many Latin American countries it is customary for married women to include their maiden name Benkel and then adding the Spanish word de =wife of; in the US this usage is comparable to, for example, Rodham Clinton. ) was born into a Jewish family in the Polish city of Lodz in 1926. Following the Nazi invasion, she went on to live with her family in the same city s ghetto. This is where Ana s younger brother was murdered together with many other children. She herself was later transported to Auschwitz in 1944, to finally end up in the Stutthof Concentration Camp in northern Poland, from where she was liberated in 1945. Upon reaching Uruguay in August 1947, Ana was reunited with her surviving brother Enrique. Ana Vinocur went on to marry in Montevideo and to build a family, two children and four grandchildren. A lady of a vivacious and gregarious nature, Ana went on to dedicate a good part of her life to teaching and enlightening adults and young people alike about her personal painful experiences. While many Holocaust survivors would live and die with their memories locked inside them, Ana Vinocur was inclined in the opposite direction: she devoted her adult life to tell her story so that it would be known and consequently not allowed to be repeated. In addition to her earlier mentioned book, she also published a shorter version of the same volume entitled Volver a vivir después de Auschwitz, (To Live Again after Auschwitz) brought out by the Uruguayan Department of Education and Culture and the National Archive, in 1999. Ana Vinocur also came to support the work of the Centro Recordatorio del Holocausto, (Holocaust Memorial Center) of which her daughter, Prof. Rita Vinocur, is now the director. 1
Her work came to be widely recognized. A Montevideo public school, N. 359, is called Ana Vinocur, as is a Keren Kayemet sponsored 10,000 trees forest in the Negev town of Yatir, where the memories of other Uruguayan World War II survivors are honored. The latest tribute to Ana Vinocur came on January 27, 2014, coinciding with the United Nations declared international date of remembrance for the victims of the Holocaust. It was on this day that the Uruguayan Postal Authority issued two se-tenant stamps, one featuring the iconic entrance gate to Auschwitz and the second one with the image of Ana Vinocur. The selvage under the Auschwitz Camp says: Auschwitz Concentration and Extermination Camp. Located west of Cracow (Poland) it was the world capital of industrialized murder. Built by the Nazi regime in 1940, and finally closed on January 27, 1945. Under the Vinocur stamp, the text on the selvage says: 9/25/1926-1/7/2006 A woman, a Jew, Polish and Uruguayan. A singer, an author, spread the concept of memory, a Holocaust survivor. On the left of the Vinocur stamp itself we are informed that the Image [of Ana Vinocur] was given by MEC, the acronym of the [Uruguayan] Education Department. A special ceremony was held to launch the stamp, co-sponsored by the Uruguay Department of Education, the Central Committee of Uruguay s Jewish community, and the B nai B rith. The stamps cancellation text said: 70 years since the closing of Auschwitz. Resistance and Co-existence. I am indebted to Prof. Rita Vinocur, the Shoa Museum Director in Montevideo, for much of the above information. The website in Spanish www.anavinocur.com includes further information about Ana Vinocur z l. **************************** JUDAICA NEW ISSUE FROM JERSEY REPORTED JOHN EMBREY Jersey will issue on 11th May 2016 a set of stamps to commemorate Albert Einstein's Theory of General Relativity. 2016 is the centenary of the theory of gravitation which developed from his theory of relativity so there could well be other issues too. **************************** 2
HOW I WAS OFFERED ADOLF HITLER S STAMP COLLECTION ALAN W. BENJAMIN I used to be a very keen golfer although my handicap was more the way I played golf rather than my score. But as my stamp business involved me in being in the United States much of the time I belonged to a primarily Jewish Florida club. One weekend I was joined by a fellow member for a game and after a few holes he asked me what business brought me to America so often? So I explained that I was a dealer in rare postage stamps. I ve got a very interesting stamp collection but it s not mine he replied. So I asked him if he was looking after it for the owner. No not really as the owner isn t expecting it back and he s dead anyway. Oh, I m very sorry to hear that, was this person a friend of yours and was he a member of this golf club - Oh, and do you know the value of this collection? It s Adolf Hitler s collection, he was never a member here and I don t know the value of the stamps but would you be interested? I said yes I was interested but more in how he got it rather than me selling it. He explained that in 1945 he was one of the US troops that stormed Berchtesgaden, the retreat where Hitler and Eva Braun used to relax. Finding Hitler s personal study my golfing buddy came across this beautifully bound red Morocco leather stamp album with a gold tooled inscription in German The Robber Politics of England Reflected in Postage Stamps. He quickly examined it and discovered it was a British Commonwealth stamp collection complete with hand drawn maps with countries of the Empire outlined in red. Quickly stuffing the album into his backpack he continued going from room to room checking for any enemy personnel. He had never previously told anyone else about this incredible find. Obviously I was very interested in seeing the collection as I had no idea that Adolf Hitler ever had any interest in stamps. I knew that many famous people were keen collectors, best known were King George V and President Roosevelt. I also knew how much the Nazi Party valued the propaganda generated by postage stamps both before and during the war but who would have thought Hitler was a philatelist. When this immaculate book was shown to me I must confess it was a most impressive album but I did feel very uneasy about actually trying to sell it. However I agreed to take it back to the UK with me to get another opinion. When home I showed it to a philatelic journalist friend named James Mackay and between us we researched the origins. I permitted James to write an article about my find in the September 1995 issue of Stamp Magazine. The collection was started in 1935 and upon examination it became very obvious that it had been put together from stamps distributed by the UPU to all members. The giveaway was the SPECIMEN overprints or in some cases the stamps were perforated SPECIMEN. Prior to 1937 all values were thus treated but with later issues only the higher values were overprinted. I did offer the album to a couple of dealers but we all felt rather uncomfortable about handling it so upon my return to the US I apologised that I had no success in selling it. Unfortunately I do not remember my golfing friend s name or address and if he was a GI seventy years ago is he still around now. I am hoping that my old US golf club will reprint my story and through that maybe someone will get back to me to produce the Hitler s stamp collection. 3
The Robber Politics of England Reflected in Postage Stamps. NEW MEMBER 164:- WILLIAM ETTER. 19 TAGGART, IRVINE, CALIFORNIA 92603 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. INTERESTS:- USA STAMPS, ISRAEL STAMPS. SIMILARITIES BETWEEN STAMPS FROM U.S AND STAMPS FROM ISRAEL. 4
A TYPICAL NAZI PROPAGANDA FORGERY ALAN W.BENJAMIN This War is a Jewish War was the caption on this propaganda forgery (see right) of the 1935 stamp commemorating the 1935 Silver Jubilee of King George V. This stamp was produced in the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp to show the world that Jews were to blame for World War ll and is a typical example of how Germany used stamps to further Neo Nazism. GEMS FROM MY COLLECTION SEYMOUR NUSSEBAUM THE ABAYUDAYA JEWS OF UGANDA Nestled within the rolling hills of Eastern Uganda lives a community of 500 black Ugandans who practice Judaism. They observe Jewish holidays, the Laws of Kashrut and keeping the Sabbath holy. For generations, and guided by the Torah, they daven in their synagogues, usually mud huts, in four different villages outside a town called Mbale. It all started in 1919 when a well-known Buganda leader named Semei Kakungulu read of the Jewish faith and was eager to learn more. Resisting both the European Colonialists and Missionaries, he met with European Jews working through the British protectorate and learned the theory and practice of Judaism. He circumcised himself and ritually immersed to signify his new religious identity. Since then his people zealously observed Shabbat, kashrut, ritual circumcision, prayer, festivals, and synagogue rituals in spite of desperate poverty, isolation and periods of persecution. They have recently been accepted by the larger Jewish community which offered help and provided them with a kosher Torah. A few years ago my cousin's son, a medical student, went to Uganda to help set up a medical clinic. I asked him to try to get something Jewish for my collection. He agreed and later sent me a few items. The one pictured here is a folded letter addressed to Rabbi Misiari Birogi and apparently carried by courier. It was written by an ancestor of Semei Kakungulu named Isaac Kakungulu. It was written in the native language Luganda and mentions Abayudaya. Although not carried by the traditional postal service, I feel it deserves a place in a Judaica collection. My cousin also sent me some correspondence from various Abayudaya affiliated groups such as the Abayudaya Congregation in Mbale which has its official handstamp containing a menorah, The Abayudaya Women Heifer Project, and the Hadassah Infant School which has a Hadassah handstamp. ********************************************************************** 5
UNITED STATES JUDAICA ISSUES FOR 2015 (AS I SEE THEM) SEYMOUR NUSSENBAUM I don t want to go into a discourse about who is and who isn t Jewish and how to arrive at parameters for a Judaica collection. After all, philately is pursued for enjoyment and everybody should be able to collect whatever makes him or her happy. My purpose is to show the myriad of ways Jews are and have been a presence in the world. To be honoured on a postage stamp from any country is an honour in itself and indicates that presence. However, a Jew could have been influential in other ways, such as by composing a song, painting a picture, sculpting a statue, designing a structure, building a bridge, etc. I think you get the trend of my thinking. I will collect a stamp honouring a non-jew if the photograph used in the stamp was taken by a Jew. That said, I would like to offer a list of the items I have collected (issued by the United States) for the year 2015. The first was the Maya Angelou issue of April 7, designed by Ethel Kessler, a long time designer with the United States Postal Service. The second issue is stretching it a bit. It is the Forget-Me-Not Missing Children issue of May 18, 2015. There is a personal connection for me since I vividly remember the first missing child whose disappearance was widely broadcast and whose picture was the first to appear on the side of milk carton containers. This helped spark the Missing Children s Movement in the US. The year was 1979. The child was Etan Patz, a Jewish child from New York City who went missing on his way to school. His body was never found and the case is still open. Although the stamp does not mention him, I designed a cachet (See illustration on next page) which has his Lost Child poster featured. Being the father of 2 young children at the time, this issue had a profound effect on me and I decided to collect it. There was also a postal entire (envelope) with the same design issued on the same day. The next issue was the Medal of Honour issue for veterans of the Vietnam War. This was issued on May 25 to remember the recipients of the highest military honour awarded to members of the US Armed Forces for acts of bravery beyond the call of duty. Among the recipients were two Jews. Their names are on the list of all the awardees that appears in the folder that comprised this issue. One of them is pictured on the cover of the folder. He is Captain Jack H. Jacobs who is still alive. The other is Sgt. John L. Levitow who received the medal posthumously. My cachet shows their photographs as well as the medal. (See illustration on next page). The next issue was a surprise to me as it may well be to you. This was the August 12 th issue commemorating Elvis Presley. When the first Elvis Presley stamps were issued in the US in 1993 I didn t even think of checking Elvis for Jewish connections. However, when this latest stamp was announced I had come up with a few mentions of his being of Jewish descent in articles on the internet. It seems both his mother and maternal grandmother were confirmed as Jewish, thus making him halachically Jewish even though he was raised as a Christian. According to these articles Elvis was well aware of his Jewish descent and when his mother died he had a Star Of David engraved on her tombstone. If that weren t enough, there is a large picture on the back of the sheet of stamps of Elvis and his guitar which was taken by Alfred Wertheimer, a German born photographer who came to the US in 1936 to avoid Nazi persecution. The next issue also involves the photograph that was used on the stamp. This was the Ingrid Bergman issue of August 20. The photograph was taken bi Laszlo Willinger, a Hungarian born photographer. My cachet for this issue shows Ingrid Bergman in her role as Golda. Last, but not least, was the Paul Newman issue of September 18. Newman, born of a Jewish father and a Christian mother identified as a Jew because, as he said, It is more of a challenge. He was an Academy Award winning actor, director, professional race car driver, and entrepreneur and philanthropist. He gave millions of dollars to charities through his food company. I made a few cachets for this issue, showing him as Ari Ben Canaan, his role in the film Exodus (See illustration on next page) as well as in his role as philanthropist. There was also a pictorial postmark from Westport, Connecticut where Newman spent the last years of his life. An added Judaica fact: The photograph used on the Paul Newman stamp was taken by photographer Steve Schapiro. I am looking forward to 2016 to see what Judaica I can glean from the stamps that the United States will issue. ***************************************************************************** Illustrated on the following page are some of my first day covers that I produced for some of the items listed in my article. They are done on my computer on an 8-1/2 x 11 sheet and cut and folded into envelopes by hand and then glued. I usually make about 5 covers per issue. ***************************************************************************** 6
LETTER TO THE EDITOR FROM CLAUDE WAINSTAIN The doubtful "Mozambique" issue, dedicated to Jewish painters mentioned by Hilton Ellison, in last month s newsletter, shows Camille Pissaro, who was the son of a Bordeaux Jewish merchant of Portuguese descent. His mother, Rachel, was from an old West Indies Jewish sefardic family. Rachel never recognized Julie, Pissaro's wife, as her daughter-in-law, because Julie was not Jewish. 7