Auschwitz Birkenau token

[malj1]

Someone has grasped the wrong end of the stick as they are asking for a starting bid of £3000 on eBay  for two souvenir tokens from Auschwitz Birkenau!

It appears to date from after 1998 according to the information provided.

I have saved the images as of course the link will break eventually.

[malj1]

Unusually I got a message blocking any further attachments.

[chrisild]

It appears to date from after 1998 according to the information provided.

Well, "60th anniversary of the liberation" refers to 27 January 1945 (the day of the liberation is Holocaust Memorial Day). So it will be from 2005 ...

Christian

[malj1]

I was unaware of a Memorial Day.

[chrisild]

In Germany it became a official memorial day in 1996; in 2005 the United Nations picked that date too. Today 27 Jan is observed in a dozen countries; some others have different dates, others do not. As for the price the seller wants - ouch. I could offer a plastic ballpoint pen and expect people to pay two million euro, dollars, pounds ... Do you know who issued that medal?

(Edit) Five years later, Poland issued several coins that commemorated the liberation of Auschwitz and Birkenau. See this brochure (PDF, English).

Christian

[malj1]

A deal of searching brought this result:

These medals were distributed in Poland for 2 days only (26 and 27 January 2005) in the Auschwitz Museum Shop.  2,000 of the medals were minted
Source

So they are a little scarce but no doubt obtainable for less than the above items.

The Memorial and Museum is here

From that latter page:
• 27 January 2020: the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the German Nazi Auschwitz camp. The Memorial will be closed for visitors.

[chrisild]

Thanks for the background info! I like the design (and frankly, the 60th anniversary would have made a little more sense for the coins too ...) but yeah, that price ... ouch.

Christian