Otwock was a city in the Warsaw area, known as a health resort. A Judenrat was appointed in October, 1939, and in December about 15,000 persons were crowded into a ghetto was created during the fall of 1940 and liquidated on August 19, 1942. During the ghetto's existence, about 2,000 persons died of hunger and typhus. Incident to the liquidation, about 8,000 persons were sent to Treblinka and Auschwitz and about 4,000 persons evaded deportation but most were ultimately caught and shot.
Below are thumbnails of the front and back of a postcard postmarked March 12, 1941 from Otwock to Brooklyn. The card contains a two-line Judenrat cachet in red. Please click on the thumbnail to see the full image, and then click your back key or "Postcard" in the left frame to return.
Museum of Tolerance On Line Learning Center
Spector, The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust (2001), P. 956-57
Copyright © 2004 Edward Victor