holocaust

The obverse bears kneeling Jewish mother with her two girls, all wearing the Yellow Star, about to be loaded onto cattle car for shipment to a death camp; armed guard next to group of people queued up in front of car in background. Signed at bottom right, 19 © 60 / E. WEISTROP

The reverse bears shattered oak stump with green shoots, 11-line tribute to the thorough-going research and preservation of the history of two World Wars in the collection of Dutch-born American numismatist Maurice Frankenhuis. The inscription reads THE / FRANKENHUIS / COLLECTION / 1914 - 1918 / 1939 - 1945 / DESPITE THE / FORCES OF DESTRUCTION / MAURICE FRANKENHUIS / PAINSTAKINGLY RECORDED / THE HISTORY OF TWO / WORLD WARS IN HIS / COLLECTION

The edge is marked MEDALLIC ART CO.N.Y BRONZE

Maurice Frankenhuis (1893-1969) was an avid collector of medals and documents relating to the great world wars that tore Europe apart in the first half of the 20th century. He had inherited a substantial collection of documents, coins, and medals from his grandfather and built on this collection during the first world war, when Holland, his home country, remained neutral. World War II was a very different story. Nazi Germany occupied the Netherlands and required Jewish males to report for deportation to labor camps. He and his family managed to avoid this fate for 21 months by hiding with a trusted Dutch family. After being discovered they ended up in the KZ Theresienstadt where they were eventually liberated in 1945.

He commissioned this medal to be the abstract expression of the human sorrow experienced by both Holocaust victims and survivers. As he said at one point:

[I] can see in the artist's rendition the actual figures of [my] wife and [our] own two little daughters; [I] can feel the pathos of their exile as they were trapped by man's inexorable inhumanity.

The medal measures 77mm in diameter and was struck by the Medallic Art Company of New York. No mintage is reported.