Counterfeiting the Holocaust: A Historical and Archival Examination of Holocaust Artifacts

This book is a reference and resource guide to help determine the authenticity of these artifacts, and provides a detailed look at various Holocaust-related artifacts in a manner that follows the experiences of the survivors and victims.

The collecting of Holocaust artifacts can often result in an emotional and historical dilemma. Survivors and some militaria collectors regard these items as “stained” with the blood of Holocaust victims, and therefore should not be bought and sold. However, to honor the memory of those who perished and to keep a proper historical record, these items must be preserved. While a small contingent of collectors deal in Holocaust artifacts, the vast majority of Holocaust-oriented artifacts are purchased by individuals who intend to donate these items to museums. As an example; the Germans identified some individuals with outward markings, forced them to register, pressed them into forced labor, ghettoized, and eventually deported them to concentration camps or labor facilities, and due to the different times that these activities took place in conquered and occupied countries, they are distinguished here by the action rather than by a general timeline (for example, Jews in occupied Poland were forced to wear “Jewish badges” in 1939, while this did not occur in Germany until 1941). The Holocaust is a difficult period of history to examine, and although some of the photographs contained in this book are horrific in nature, this book in no way trivializes the magnitude of the Holocaust by discussing the collection and identification of Holocaust-related artifacts. The issue at hand is the callous disregard by those who profit from the Holocaust by manufacturing and selling counterfeit and fake items. Alec Tulkoff has been a collector of World War II militaria for the past twenty-five years. Over the past seven years he has taken an interest in Holocaust history and artifacts. During the past two years, while working at the SHOAH Visual History Foundation as a cataloguer, he compiled the information and materials contained in this book. As a cataloguer in the Foundation, he had the opportunity to hear hundreds of first hand Holocaust survivor testimonies. Tulkoff has worked hard in combating the vast amount of Holocaust artifact fraud that has spread in the collecting community and has posted a website dealing with this fraud and also publishes a quarterly newsletter on this topic.