Generational Biography and history of Numismatics through the Holocaust

[radars_teddy]

http://www.numismaticmall.com/numismaticmall-com/schulman-jacques

opyright © 2011-2018 John N. Lupia III

                                                    Introduction

This biography of Jacques Schulman published in  English is primarily written for the benefit of American numismatists. No coherent and

thorough biographical information about Jacques Schulman and his heirs has ever been published in English. Consequently, in order to

illuminate the subject essential facts about Schulman and the firm shall be given to aid the reader in appreciating the rich history of the

Schulman firm and its heirs going on 140 years

https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/nr2001020452.html

Jacques Schulman (Firm)

    URI(s)
        http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/nr2001020452
    Instance Of
        MADS/RDF CorporateName
        MADS/RDF Authority
        SKOS Concept Offsite link
    Scheme Membership(s)
        Library of Congress Name Authority File
    Collection Membership(s)
        Names Collection - Authorized Headings
        LC Names Collection - General Collection
    Variants
        Expert J. Schulman (Firm)
    Additional Information
        http://id.loc.gov/rwo/agents/nr2001020452
        Associated Locale
            (naf) Amsterdam (Netherlands)
        Associated Locale
            (naf) Amersfoort (Netherlands)
    Additional Related Forms
        Schulman B.V.
        Schulman, J. (Jacques), 1849-1914
    Exact Matching Concepts from Other Schemes
        OCLC - VIAFhttp://viaf.org/viaf/sourceID/LC%7Cnr2001020452#skos:Concept

[Figleaf]

I have known Jacques, Helena, Robert and Laurens Schulman personally. See here. The business has been sold, but I believe Laurens still works there (unless he is retired). The list of publications is highly incomplete, mentioning neither the catalogue of modern Dutch coins that is still the standard nor the "classic" auction catalogues, including the jubilee catalogue (269), the paper money catalogue (274) and the Serooskerke hoard catalogue (244).

Peter

[Henk]

Some additional information about Schulman during the 2nd WW is obtained from the follwing medal. Information and photo taken from the specimen kept in the Joods Historisch Museum Amsterdam, Inventory M007701. This medal is quite scarce.

Bronze 60 mm
O: Portraits of Jacques and Helena to the left: Helena Th. Th. M. Smits MCMXLV Jacques Schulman numismaat
R: Uit dankbaarheid voor uw hulp bij onze evacuatie uit Den Haag in 1943, en bij ons huwelijk te Amsterdam zoowel kerkelijk (RK) 2 juni ´44 als burgelijk 5 juni ´45 en bij al de moeilijkheden die wij als gemengd joods gezin ondervonden hebben (In gratitude for your help with our evacuation from The Hague in 1943, and with our wedding in Amsterdam both ecclesiastical (RK) 2 June ´44 and civilly 5 June ´45 and with all the difficulties we experienced as a mixed Jewish family)

This medal shows that Jacques Schulman was of mixed marriage. Although his marriage was not official and was concluded after mixed marriages became illegal in early 1942. Jews of mixed marriage were exempt from deportation, at least in Germany. In the Netherlands this rule was not kept at first. It was only adopted later on orders from Hitler.

See: Coen Stuldreher, De legale rest: Gemengd gehuwde Joden onder de Duitse bezetting. And for a review of this book: https://www.groene.nl/artikel/teruggefloten-door-hitler

[Figleaf]

Thank you, Henk! Top research, as I am used to from you. The medal answers quite a few open questions for me. Thank you also for the link. An important white spot in my knowledge I never knew I had has been coloured in. I was well aware of the Calmeyer and the Jewish Council controversies, though. I'll try posting a translation on Stuhldreher's findings today.

Peter

[Figleaf]

Source: see above

QUOTE (The book) gives a sobering picture of the hunt for mixed-married Jews in the Netherlands during the war. The Dutch authorities were so overzealous in their measures that they had to be called back by Hitler himself. Coen Stuldreher referred to the persecution policy by the German authorities in the Netherlands with regard to mixed-married Jews as  overzealous. Labbekakkerig (inert; the word has a sharply negative connotation) is the word he used several times when it came to the attitude of the Dutch and Dutch government institutions. Those words are, of course, not to be found in his dissertation. He used them to me about a year and a half ago when I spoke to him about his research. Justly. Hundreds of mixed-married Jews would not have had to be transported. Thousands should not have been so terrified.

Stuldreher has not drawn any detailed conclusions from his book. In a far too short afterword, he actually only writes one sentence: 'The Jewish mixed marriage partners and their families were by no means spared the German anti-Jewish policy in the occupied Netherlands on the basis of their marital position, as, in a certain sense, was the case in the German Reich because of their so-called "privileged" marriage." In that one sentence he says it all. In the Netherlands the mixed-married Jews were in worse condition than in Germany itself. They were persecuted, sterilised and deported, until the consignment came from Berlin not to get ahead of things here.

Nazi Germany has always struggled with the question of where to draw the line between Jews and non-Jews. Complicated subcategories and combinations of descent, marriage, and denomination resulted. Hitler did not want to go so far as to declare Mischlinge (half-breeds) full Jews, and thus to be deported, nor to sterilise Jews married to non-Jews. In Germany, these mixed marriages were called "privileged" and the mixed-married Jews were not persecuted. In the Netherlands, however, they had to wear a star and were outlawed. Sterilisation of mixed-married couples has been considered in Germany, but has only been applied – temporarily – in the Netherlands.

Stuldreher brushed aside my utter lay suggestion that Hitler might have been afraid of being partly of Jewish blood himself, but he emphasised that Hitler did fear the reactions of non-Jewish families to the deportation of Jewish marriage partners. In Berlin, the non-Jewish wives staged a famous and successful demonstration against it. In the Netherlands, Dutch secretaries-general and even the Jewish Council could have done much more to protect mixed-married Jews, but they were, in the words of Stuldreher, too labyrinthine for that.

Just as the entire persecution of the Jews took place here much more smoothly and therefore on a more massive scale than elsewhere, the persecution of mixed-married people here also went much too smoothly, until it was reversed by order of Berlin. Sterilisations were stopped, people were released from Westerbork, not because of specific circumstances or special protection, but simply because they were not (yet) eligible for prosecution under German rules. It is a special example of what Philo Bregstein has called 'the Dutch paradox'. In the land of the February (railroad) strike, the extermination of the Jews was easier, more orderly, and therefore more successful than anywhere else in Western Europe. The children and grandchildren of mixed marriages are still suffering the consequences.

So far, little has been written about the fate of the mixed-married Jews in the Netherlands during the Second World War. On the one hand, this is understandable, because their fate was often much less difficult than that of other Jews, and the same only in the worst cases. On the other hand, many people with a Jewish background in the Netherlands are descendants of these mixed marriages. There must be many questions in these people's minds about what happened in the war, questions that until now could not be answered. Many mixed-married people who survived the war have never been able to fully understand why they could escape the dance, while other mixed-married people were deported and murdered.

They have, of course, also been in terrible fear. Rightly so, because at the slightest violation they could still be sent on transport as a 'criminal case'. That soon happened. Understandably, they tried to help Jewish relatives. They were – in the words of Coen Stuldreher – the first refuge in hiding. But if they were caught, they had to pay a heavy price. They were then still equated with Jews, because it had turned out that they had chosen their Jewish side. Not to mention the guilt and shame too when, out of fear, they have not helped their Jewish family.UNQUOTE

Text in brackets are mine. Note that the "utter lay" journalist has inserted his own ideas and interpretations.

Peter