Lot 56
'Robinow - Stahl'. The rarest of the three signature pairings in a respectable grade
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Provenance:
- Paper Money, Australia & New Zealand Exhibited:
- Collectibles Literature:
- 396 Medium:
- Coins, Monies & Stamps Notes:
- The Hay Internment Camps in outback New South Wales were opened in 1940 to house some 2,732 Germans and Austrians who had been rounded up in Britain at the start of the War. Many were professional men of Jewish heritage who had escaped Nazi Germany only to be cruelly dispatched to Australia aboard the H.M.T. Dunera, their only crime being that their identification papers were German and Austrian passports. Deemed ‘enemy’ aliens they were confined to Camps 7 and 8 at Hay but quickly made life more bearable by establishing a leadership group that organised camp rules and even entertainment including a theatre. The inmates of Camp 7 also printed a short-lived monetary system consisting of banknotes with declared “legal Australian Currency” values of Sixpence, Shilling and Two Shillings. However, the notes were quickly deemed illegal by the Australian authorities and withdrawn. It has been calculated that up to 3,000 sixpence, 3,000 shilling and 2,000 two shilling notes were printed but only a small number of souvenired notes have survived to this day. Their intricate designs were the work of an Austrian Georg Telcher whose previous work had appeared on Austrian coins, and cheekily include many hidden and humorous features that protest the unfair imprisonment of the camp internees. Concealed in the fleece of the ram on the front of the notes is the name “Eppenstein” the leader of Camp 7. Numerous names of other internees are hidden in the fleece of the sheep on the reverse including “Katz”, “Brach”, “Heckroth”’ “Schmitz”, ‘Lehner”, “Fabian”, “Kitzinger”, “Stahl”, “Oppenheim”, “Wolpe” and “Lowenstein”. At the foot of the wooden camp fence shown on the front of the notes the poignant words “H.M.T Dunera Liverpool to Hay” are secreted. But perhaps the most telling message are the words that are hidden in the barbed-wire perimeter - “we are here because we are here” summing up their bemusement of their circumstances. In a world now preoccupied with walls and barriers it is an important reminder of man’s inhumanity to man.
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| From: | To: | Increments: |
|---|---|---|
| A$0 | A$249 | A$5 |
| A$250 | A$999 | A$10 |
| A$1,000 | A$4,999 | A$25 |
| A$5,000 | A$9,999 | A$50 |
| A$10,000 + | A$100 |