100 Kronen Theresienstadt Concentration Camp

These notes were designed and printed entirely within the camp itself, under SS orders — the currency was part of a deliberate Nazi deception program intended to give Theresienstadt the appearance of a self-governing Jewish settlement with a functioning economy. The Ältestenrat was compelled to issue them; Jakob Edelstein, whose signature appears here, was deported to Auschwitz in late 1943 and shot in June 1944.

Peter Kien, who drew the design, was a trained artist from Varnsdorf. He died in Auschwitz in October 1944. The currency was never redeemable for anything of actual value — no goods in the camp could be purchased with it that were not already rationed or withheld.