The first known use of Holocaust money was in the Lodz ghetto in Poland in 1940. Over the next five years, the Nazis introduced currencies in concentration camps and other ghettos in Germany and occupied Poland, Czechoslovakia and the Netherlands. Each camp or ghetto had its own currency — with unique denominations and designs — to be used only within its gates.

Natale said Holocaust money was part of a complex economic system that served to strip European Jewry of its resources and further the Nazis’ genocidal aims. Jews could redeem the money under Nazi regulations or through black markets for food, clothes and other goods.

In concentration camps, Nazi officials and some factory owners paid Jewish slave laborers “bonuses” in the currencies to make them work harder. Thousands of Jews were worked to death during the Holocaust.

Read the article “Concentration Camp Currency Unearthed by Researchers” on forward.com.