World War II Ephemera
5,133 Total
DESCRIPTION
The World War II Ephemera Collection consists of more than 5,000 items, primarily illustrated, photo, and text postcards (4,000+), as well as open letters (750+), writing paper (70+), military propaganda leaflets (145+), and military commendations (30+). Most of the items date to 1939-1945.
Most of the holdings are Soviet, though there are also Finnish, German, Italian, Czech, and French postcards. Of the postal materials, approximately 1,800 were inscribed and mailed, offering us a window into how this mass-produced medium was personalized to reflect the war experiences of soldiers and civilians.
Most of the holdings are Soviet, though there are also Finnish, German, Italian, Czech, and French postcards. Of the postal materials, approximately 1,800 were inscribed and mailed, offering us a window into how this mass-produced medium was personalized to reflect the war experiences of soldiers and civilians.
The illustrations on the Soviet postcards encompass a wide range of topics, including:
- Soviet and pre-Soviet military commanders
- soldiers, sailors, aviators, and partisans
- anti-German caricatures
- battle scenes and military feats
- women and children in the rear
- the home front
- songs and music
- military orders and medals
- New Year celebrations
- anniversaries of the October Revolution and the Red Army
- actors, writers, and other cultural icons
One particularly noteworthy subset from the collection is the approximately 150 text cards mailed by Ukrainian POWs from German labor camps.
Cataloging and transcription work on this collection is ongoing, and further information will be added as it becomes available.
DATES
1939-1945
PROVENANCE
The collection was assembled by several deltiologists over the course of 50 years and acquired by the Blavatnik Archive in 2014 from an anonymous postcard dealer.
HIGHLIGHTS
Soviet World War II postcard reproduction of a 1942 painting by I. Radimov. The work depicts a Nazi atrocity against civilians: the shooting of schoolchildren in Kerch in 1941. The caption on the postcard does not indicate that these children were Jewish, perhaps due to the Soviet policy at the time of emphasizing the unity of Soviet people and not wishing to acknowledge that the Germans were disproportionately targeting Jews.
FEATURED
"In their purposeful destruction of Prague's monuments, the Germans did not forget the Czech National Museum," ca. 1945-1948
Postcard with a caption in Czech, detailing damage to and around the National Museum: one bomb destroyed a residential building in front of the museum and another hit the museum itself: "Ve svém cílevědomém ničení pražských památek nezapomněli Němci ve dnech 5. až 9. května 1945 na České národní museum. Německá bomba před museem zničila obytný dům, jiná bomba zasáhla střední vnitřni část musea."
According to the publishing note, this postcard was produced by A. Wanner after his return from the concentration camp in Flossenbürg.
