Please Help With Nazi-Era Cover

A friend of mine has inherited a family stamp collection. I have been helping her evaluate the collection but feel my knowledge is extremely limited in this area.

The envelope contained a letter to her uncle, mother and aunt. It was sent to them by their sister. The cover back appears to note that the letter passed through the censors. The picture of the cover front is obviously partial and depicts the stamps and cancellation only.

Do any of you see anything else of historical or postal significance?

Thank you for your time.
Dave

From Lodz, now in Poland to California. Censor marks. The sender's name appears Jewish. The Rauchgasse was in the Jewish ghetto of Lodz (Litzmannstadt), the second largest in Europe after that of Warsaw. It was being established when the letter was sent.

At least it is interesting from a historical perspective.

It looks like a forgery.will have to check..

You ought to show the whole cover, front and back so we can tell better as to what is going on here


Peter

Partial pictures do not help your case or ours. If you want the addressee to remain anonymous, just cover that part with a slip of paper to show us the cover front, please.

Litzmannstadt was the German occupation name of Lodz, Poland. It was the site of the Litzmannstadt ghetto where Jews and Roma were confined. There is nothing to immediately indicate that this could be from the ghetto from what is shown.

The sender address at the back is Rauchgasse 30. This street was situated in the ghetto.

I don't believe the sender was Jewish. There is no required Old Testament first name.

Also, by this date (September 1940) there would have been a large number of older, ethnic Germans sent to this area (greater Germany) as "settlers".

Highly unlikely that Arian Germans lived in the Rauchgasse in September 1940

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/cont...article/lodz
https://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/l...s_ghetto.htm

Also, Szwarzberg is a Jewish name.

A name ending in "berg", rather then "burg" is often Jewish.

I stand corrected; I've never seen such cover without first name.

Kaja?

I believe you are correct. I looked up Kaja because I am not familiar with it. It is a feminine name in Polish, and unisex in Czech. Still, it doesn't meet the Nazi requirement.

Cover certainly appears to be genuine, in my opinion.

Interesting routing. San Pedro CA on 30 October 1940, Festus MO on November 2. Which way did it travel to the USA? Of course, USA was not directly involved in the war at that time but this suggests it came either "the long way" across the Pacific, or via Mexico and then into the USA. Anyone know about this sort of thing?

The censor tape is tied by the San Pedro cancel, so this looks legit.

I think it is genuine also.I checked the red censor handstamp with Jakob Blaugrund's cards handstamp.From the link below;
https://blog.ehri-project.eu/2020/1...the-ghettos/
It may of been the same handstamp used in the op's cover and the card.


Another red handstamp with the same characteristics:
http://www.holocaustjourney.com/cat...i-bi-lublin/

I imagine that it would have gone to Lisbon; by October of 1940 France had fallen, and it would be easy for German mail to go through Spain to get there. Once there it would be flown to the US. I'm not sure if Bermuda was involved yet.

Found this:
http://www.edwardvictor.com/Ghettos...lic_main.htm
Agree, very likely a Jewish name and if the street was in the ghetto, that's that. Note that in the above examples of mail being sent outside the camp, there is no "Sarah" or the other required name added within the actual name, so there might have been a special agreement not to do this.

The routing via San Pedro suggests it came across the Pacific, via the Red Cross or somesuch. Unless we are shown the whole front and whole back, we can only speculate. If the enclosed letter is dated, that would also be useful.