The American Philatelist April 2020

This space in the American Philatelic Center, Bellefonte,
will be devoted to the exhibit of Holocaust-era
postal history items, many of the stamp collages by
Foxborough students, and a display of the 11 million
stamps. Visitors will be guided through the exhibit with
the help of informational displays.
The Holocaust Exhibit planning committee meets in late February.
Committee members include APS volunteer Darlene Bloom, APS staff
members Dr. Cathy Brachbill, Erin Seamans, Marian Mills, Susanna Mills,
Heidi Rhoades, Kathleen Edwards, and Fred Fox, and Content intern Jo
Chen (Penn State University).
brance, recognition, and a present-day pledge to combat
intolerance, the American Philatelic Society is uniquely situated
to provide evidence and education in the form of irrefutable
postal history. The committee reached out to prominent
Holocaust-era philatelists, including Justin Gordon, Keith
Stupell, and Ken Lawrence, and drew upon philatelic exhibits,
books, and articles to develop a postal history exhibit
that would complement the Holocaust Stamps Project materials.
The committee also worked with local Jewish leaders
and historians from Penn State University to develop guidelines
for the exhibit.
These two purposes for the exhibit shaped many of the
committee’s decisions that followed. Visitors to the American
Philatelic Center after the exhibit’s opening in June will
witness that unfathomable tragedy as represented by the 11
million stamps that were collected by the Foxborough Regional
Charter School students. You will see a timeline of
the events of the Holocaust and the spread of concentration
camps and ghettos across Europe, with postal cards, information
cards, and other surviving remnants of postal history
connected to the dates and locations. You will bear witness
to individual victims of the Nazis, many of whom would die
in the concentration camps, through a single piece of paper
that may be the only remaining evidence of their lives. You
will also see this history carried forward into the future,
through the connections forged by Foxborough students
with survivors, family and friends of Holocaust victims, and
individuals moved by the project to contribute.
To that point, below are a few excerpts from the letters
received by Foxborough students in the course of their project.
It may come as no surprise to you that many of the stamp
donations were paired with testimonials of even greater value
to the students – and now, to us.
Dear Students,
My great aunt, Mindl Kotel, was killed by the
Nazis in front of her home, along with her husband
and three children ages 11, 8 and 5.
I saved five of the prettiest stamps and am putting
them with a page showing the truncated family
tree.
Thank you for remembering Mindl, Pinya, Vladimir,
Abram and Bronya, along [with] the other 11
million killed in the Holocaust.
S. Radbil
Dear students,
. . . Some [stamps] are from my piano teacher . .
. [Her name] was Gabriella Kottler and I will never
forget the number burned on her arm from when she
was in the camps. One Christmas, she came to our
house for dinner with her husband and ended up
telling us her story. I vividly remember her telling us
how they wanted to break her as she was a strong
woman. Gabriella persevered, even when they took
her shoes and made her stand in line in the snow.
There was not a sound around the dinner table for
over an hour.
J. Flynn
Hello,
I am sending you 100 Australian stamps, in
memory of my maternal grandparents, Dolec and
Jozefa Lurie. Both were survivors of concentration
camps, and along with Dolec’s brother, were
the only members of both families combined to live
through the Holocaust. They were newly-weds before
the war, and were reunited afterwards in a
displaced person’s camp in Trani, Italy. They chose
to emigrate to Australia, and lived there the rest of
their lives.
M. Cole
Last summer, I learned that my great-uncle Dan
had helped liberate Belsen. He had about ten photographs
from within the camp with him, which he
324 AMERICAN PHILATELIST / APRIL 2020