The American Philatelist April 2020

Overview
Like the other concentration camps under the German
IKL (Inspektion der Konzentrationslager), mail both to and
from the inmates in KL Lublin was officially sanctioned, as
was Schutzstaffel policy. Each camp had its own set of rules
and regulations regarding mail, but almost all of them allowed
the non-Jewish prisoners to write and receive letters.
This was in no way intended to be of benefit to the prisoners,
but was instead a device used by the SS to control the inmate
populations and manage public perception of the German
concentration camp system. The mail system facilitated the
cover story that the camps were perfectly benign and that
the prisoners were well-treated. By allowing the prisoners to
write censored letters, the SS furthered this illusion and at
the same time used the mail system to advance their goals
for mass murder.
At KL Lublin, like the other German camps, Jewish
prisoners were not allowed to write or receive letters except
during certain planned mail operations (Briefaktions), and
prisoners who were chosen for these operations were usually
murdered. These deceptive mail operations consisted of
forcing inmates to write cards that were later posted outside
the camps after the writers had already been sent to the gas
chambers. There appears to be no surviving mail from the
Soviet POWs who made up the early inmate population of
KL Lublin, so it is safe to assume that they were also under a
postal ban. The first mail observed in relation to KL Lublin
inmates is from February 1943. Prior to this time, KL Lublin
inmates (including the large initial population of Soviet
POWs) were not allowed to write or receive mail, a decision
likely made by the camp administration.
Surviving mail sent to and from KL Lublin is not plentiful
relative to some other camps in the German system,
as the window between the first mail observed in February
1943 and the evacuation of the camp in July 1944 was
only 17 months. Most mail sent by prisoners in KL Lublin
consisted of postal cards with innocuous messages and information
cards regarding the receipt of packages. Later in
the camp’s history, neutral letter sheets and envelopes were
also used. Other than the information cards, there was no
specific preprinted stationary, i.e., containing a printed camp
name, used as has been observed in other concentration
camps, such as KL Auschwitz.
Outgoing Mail
The scarce generic preprinted postal card depicted in Figure
3, unusual in that it has been found used only from KL
Lublin, features a standard list of IKL rules, including ones
specifying the sending and receipt of letters and parcels, e.g.,
“Money, photographs, and pictures in letters are forbidden”
and “Obscure or illegible letters will be destroyed.” The name
and address of the camp are not printed on the card, but the
CDC (circular date cancel) reveals its origin as Lublin. The
Polish Red Cross (PCK) cachet stamped on the front, commonly
seen on KL Lublin mail, was not placed by the camp
administration but added later to outgoing mail by the Polish
Red Cross. The PCK was mostly involved with the delivery
of food parcels to KL Lublin, which was allowed by the
SS in part because there was simply not enough food in the
camp to support the inmate population. Why they added a
cachet to outgoing mail is unknown, but the SS probably allowed
it as a “seal of approval.” The PCK cachet is unique
to KL Lublin. The 12 Gr (groschen) stamp paid the General
Government (Generalgouvernement, the military government
of the Polish-occupied territory) postal card rate.
The reverse of the card in Figure 3 features a KL Lublin
censor mark. Note that the text is written in Polish, which
was generally not allowed in any of the camps, as German
was usually required. This deviation from IKL regulations
has been observed on many KL Lublin inmate mail objects
and is peculiar to this camp. It was also a privilege allowed
only to political prisoners. This card was posted to the city
of Lublin and written by Stanisław Zelent, a bridge and road
engineer who fought first in the Polish Army and then as a
partisan. He was arrested in March 1942, sent by the Gestapo
Figure 3. Generic KL postal card with CDC (circular date cancel) of March 7,
1944, sent by prisoner Stanisław Zelent to the city of Lublin.
312 AMERICAN PHILATELIST / APRIL 2020