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Theresienstadt Ghetto currency display

Article about: The 50M is going to be the bad one and the 10M in presentable shape isn't all that easy either! It took me awhile to find decent pieces to make the entire set, but it's always better to buy

  1. #21
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    A Wikipedia link to a page about the artist, Petr Kien/Klein - I have seen it written both ways. Well worth reading as he was a prolific artist and well known figure.


    Peter Kien - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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  3. #22
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    Another interesting part of the history of these notes, was the widespread post war belief that they were never issued to those in the ghetto, only being created as part of the ruse to mislead the Red Cross organisation during their visit. This was only discounted when survivors began to speak of the notes, their usage and the system - including savings cards, details of which were only revealed later. The Germans did indeed manage to mislead the Red Cross visitors in many ways, including the installation of a large detailed bathroom - now if the Red Cross visitors had only tried the taps...they'd have found that they were not actually plumbed in...

  4. #23

    Default Jindra Schmidt vs Petr Kien

    Quote by CARL88 View Post
    The source is The International Engraver's Line by Gene Hessler. However, as you have stated above, the information regarding the placement of the hand over the commandment "Thou Shall Not Kill" is patently incorrect. The adjustment to the design of the Jewish "Moses" caricature is known to be true though - I have both the original design by artist Petr Klein and the later, adjusted design as used on the banknotes in a book. Further, the engraving was done by Jindra Schmidt. In Campbell's earlier work, he refers to the portrait being prepared for use on the notes by Schmidt but Feller+Feller's highly regarded work states that Klein drew the original sketches and Schmidt was the engraver.

    Regards,

    Carl

    p.s. Your earlier post, no.13, was excellent - well done!

    It seems entirely plausible that Jindra Schmidt was instructed to make Kien's original idealised portrait of Moses appear more in line with the German stereotypical image of a "Jew" as portrayed in other German anti-Semitic propaganda. I assume the story about Heydrich's involvement in the design change was told by Jindra Schmidt after the war as Kien had died in Auschwitz 1944.

    But........

    The image on the left was IMO drawn by an engraver and is unlike any of the drawing styles I could find used by Kien. Was Kien an engraver at all? It was normal practice for creative artwork to be handed over to a skilled and trained engraver to reproduce the original artwork in a form that could be printed.

    The drawing technique and pen-tools used by a engraver are highly specialised and engravings feature the distinctive use of distinctive cross-hatched strokes to achieve shading and contours. This is evident in both examples illustrated. IMO the cross-hatching exhibited in both of these examples was done by the same hand and that would be Jindra Schmidt who was an engraver first and foremost. In other words the left image is not the original Kien sketch but a first iteration of Schmidt's engraved interpretation of the sketch.

    Theresienstadt Ghetto currency display

    I think the likely scenario would have been Jindra Schmidt produced an engraving based on an original sketch by Kien and that first engraving was the left image which was rejected by whomever (some reports seem suggest this was Eichmann rather than Heydrich) and the second engraving on the right was created and used in the final bank notes.

    Below a section from a supreme example of an engraving after a drawing by William Miller which shows the cross-hatching technique needed to reproduce shading and contours of a drawing in print.

    Theresienstadt Ghetto currency display

    Theresienstadt Ghetto currency display
    Last edited by StefanM; 12-01-2013 at 05:50 PM.
    I collect, therefore I am.

    Nothing in science can explain how consciousness arose from matter.

  5. #24

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    Quote by CARL88 View Post
    Fortunately, I have the book with me here - and not in my library 1,000 miles away! This is the image that patently shows the marked differences. The image on the left is Klein's original sketch, the one to the right the amended design later used on the Theresienstadt notes. This image was taken from the Feller+Feller work - which credits the aforementioned Hessler work.
    Thanks for showing this image Carl , it is a striking piece to compare with. Just re-enforces the lengths Nazi Germany would go to in portraying their "false" ideology and stereo types. The original "sketch" is a beautiful piece of artwork in my eye's. Leon.

  6. #25

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    Hello Carl and Stefen , I know this is not really relevant but here is an image of the passage of the Ten Commandments from my Hebrew Torah. As I said in an earlier post , I cannot read Hebrew apart from the very odd word so I had to cross reference this with my standard "English" bible.(EXODUS 20 V1-18) EDIT: I apologise for the fact that the top picture is in fact the last commandment and the bottom picture should have been first! Leon.
    Click to enlarge the picture Click to enlarge the picture Theresienstadt Ghetto currency display   Theresienstadt Ghetto currency display  


  7. #26

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    Judaism has 613 mitzvot (commandments) rather than the Christian ten commandments.

    BTW if you can read one or two words of Hebrew then this is one or two more words than I can
    I collect, therefore I am.

    Nothing in science can explain how consciousness arose from matter.

  8. #27

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    Ha Ha , Melek (king) is one of the very few that "stand out" for me , if I knew how to get up Hebrew text on my type settings I would type it out for you! Leon.

  9. #28
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    QUOTE 4thskorpion "I assume the story about Heydrich's involvement in the design change was told by Jindra Schmidt after the war as Kien had died in Auschwitz 1944."

    Yes, the artist died due to a disease, shortly after his arrival at the Auschwitz camp system.


    QUOTE 4thskorpion "I think the likely scenario would have been Jindra Schmidt produced an engraving based on an original sketch by Kien and that first engraving was the left image..."

    That is correct.

    QUOTE 4thskorpion "...which was rejected by whomever (some reports seem suggest this was Eichmann rather than Heydrich) and the second engraving on the right was created and used in the final bank notes."

    What is the source that identifies any connection with Eichmann? I read this on an Internet site but there was no credit as to where this information came from.

    Further, the Schmidt biography states "the order was given by the management of the bank (Czech National) to Schmidt" - this was of course an order with the authority of the Reichsprotektor office - headed by Heydrich. It has been stated by more than one early Czech source that the initial designs - drawn by the artist Petr Kien, were rejected by Reinhard Heydrich for the reasons highlighted earlier in this thread and others. The same sources also name the designer Bedřich Fojtášek as being involved with the design process, probably as an assistant to Schmidt - who also worked on other banknotes and stamps during the period.

  10. #29

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    Quote by CARL88 View Post
    QUOTE 4thskorpion "I assume the story about Heydrich's involvement in the design change was told by Jindra Schmidt after the war as Kien had died in Auschwitz 1944."

    Yes, the artist died due to a disease, shortly after his arrival at the Auschwitz camp system.


    QUOTE 4thskorpion "I think the likely scenario would have been Jindra Schmidt produced an engraving based on an original sketch by Kien and that first engraving was the left image..."
    That is correct.

    QUOTE 4thskorpion "...which was rejected by whomever (some reports seem suggest this was Eichmann rather than Heydrich) and the second engraving on the right was created and used in the final bank notes."

    What is the source that identifies any connection with Eichmann? I read this on an Internet site but there was no credit as to where this information came from.

    Further, the Schmidt biography states "the order was given by the management of the bank (Czech National) to Schmidt" - this was of course an order with the authority of the Reichsprotektor office - headed by Heydrich. It has been stated by more than one early Czech source that the initial designs - drawn by the artist Petr Kien, were rejected by Reinhard Heydrich for the reasons highlighted earlier in this thread and others. The same sources also name the designer Bedřich Fojtášek as being involved with the design process, probably as an assistant to Schmidt - who also worked on other banknotes and stamps during the period.
    Re Eichmann, like you I found it on the internet without a reference:

    "Some accounts say that the Camp Commandant Siegfried Seidle approved the designs and submitted them to Adolf Eichmann, head of the Gestapo Department of Jewish Affairs, who immediately rejected them saying Moses was too Aryan and should instead be portrayed with a prominent hooked nose and curly hair. Eichmann also required that Moses’ hand obscure the commandment “Thou shalt not kill,” and that the denominations be changed from “Ghetto Kronen” to just “Kronen.”

    Another account has Kien initially submitting his designs to the camp commandant, who then submitted them to the SS second in command, Reinhard Heydrich, (SS Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia), who rejected them. Heydrich also is recorded as saying that he thought that Moses looked too Aryan, and lacked the strongly stereotyped Semitic features that conformed to the Nazi vision of Jewish appearance. Whichever version is correct, the result was that the designs went back to Kien to be changed."

    .....no mention of source or of where this was "recorded".

    There is a huge problem, and I am sure you have found it also, with oft repeated references & sources that go unchecked from one publication to another that become the accepted narrative but actually just compound error after error.

    I did wonder at first if the Heydrich story was made up by those involved in the Czechoslovakian State Bank as a cover for its own anti-Semitic interpretation of the original Kien drawing, however I do not know anything about the collaboration of Czechoslovakian administrators with the German occupiers or what political or ideological affinities, if any, that might have existed between the two.
    I collect, therefore I am.

    Nothing in science can explain how consciousness arose from matter.

  11. #30

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    Of the 2, Heydrich I could believe, but I have doubts on any Eichmann connection.
    William

    "Much that once was, is lost. For none now live who remember it."

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