1942 Third Reich, Germany, Censored Folded Letter of a Protective Custody Prisoner from Auschwitz Concentration Camp to Sachsenwer Generalgouvernement, former Prisoner of the Notorious Pawiak Prison in Warsaw, Censorship Postmark, More Details in Description

This document is an official censored folding letter (Faltbrief) from concentraion camp Auschwitz to Sachsenwer in the Generalgouvernement. Instead of using a standard envelope and separate paper—which were strictly forbidden—the document functions as its own envelope. The camp's communication regulations were pre-printed directly onto the front panel next to the address space, while the inner sections were reserved for the sender's details and the handwritten message.
Every Faltbrief had to pass through the camp’s mail censorship office (Postzensurstelle). The front features a prominent purple ink stamp reading "Geprüft / 10 / K. L. Auschwitz" (Approved / Censor 10 / Concentration Camp Auschwitz) alongside a red Auschwitz post office cancel dated in1943. This confirms that the letter's content complied with the rigid text length limits and contained no forbidden information before being officially cleared for dispatch.

The folding letter belongs to Jerzy (George) Glimny (born January 3, 1915).
He was arrested in Warsaw and held at the notorious Pawiak Prison before being deported by the Sipo/SD to Auschwitz Concentration Camp on November 13, 1942. Upon arrival, he was assigned the prisoner number 74578.
He was later transferred to the brutal Mauthausen-Gusen camp system in Austria, where he was assigned a new prisoner number, 80414. Records of his subsequent letters to his family from late 1944 are preserved in the McMaster University Digital Collections.

The printed text on the left dictates the strict rules for prisoner correspondence enforced by the Camp Commandant. It limits mail to two letters or cards per month, restricts the text length, forbids packages, and states that all release requests are futile.

The original stamp was presumably detached from the letter; it was either reattached later or replaced with a copy. Furthermore, the written inner side is unfortunately stuck together.

Provenance: Ex Werbizky.