Bidspirit auction | Joseph Merkine, a Jew of

Joseph Merkine, a Jew of Paris, French prisoner of war in Germany 1940-1945: lot of 5 items: his 1945 repatriation card, his father's POW allowance certificate from occupied Paris 1944, his 1956 combatant card and 1937 sports licence with his photographs, and a 1918 photo postcard of French POWs from Puchheim camp - Five items, at their centre four personal documents of Joseph Merkine, a Jew born in Paris (25.1.1907, 18th arrondissement), captured by the Germans in June 1940 and held prisoner for five years . All the documents, from 1937 to 1956, carry the same address: 28 rue Simart, Paris 18e. He came home in May 1945 and, according to the French death register, died in Paris, 18th arrondissement, on 4.5.2002, aged 95 . The lot comes with a research report (PDF, 9 pages) prepared by the Congress Habulaim auction house: every document described with its key lines highlighted, a table of dates and the background of the Jewish prisoners of war of France. (1) 1918, the prisoners of the previous war: a photo postcard of four French soldiers in uniform (Atelier H. Weiss), sent on 27.10.1918, two weeks before the Armistice, from the Puchheim prisoner of war camp near Munich , with the censor mark ”Geprüft XXVI Lager Puchheim”: ”best kisses from Gustave” to the Blondeau family, Paris 14e. The card is not from the Merkine family. (2) 1937-38, the sportsman: membership licence No. 29510 of the Fédération Sportive et Gymnique du Travail (FSGT) , the sports federation of the French labour movement: ”Merkine Joseph”, born 25.1.1907, 28 rue Simart Paris 18e, qualified 16.11.1937, with his photograph as a young man, his signature, the treasury stamp and four ”F.S.G.T. 1937-38” dues stamps. (3) 1.1.1944, the father in occupied Paris: certificate No. 67932 for the family allowance of a prisoner of war (Délégations familiales ou allocations militaires), stamped ”PRISONNIER”, issued in Paris for the Prefect: his father, Merkine of 28 rue Simart, is entitled to the allowance as father of the prisoner ”MERKINE Joseph”, from 5.9.1939 , in the days of the general mobilisation. Signed by the father; on the back the table of payment coupons, blank. (4) May 1945, the return: the repatriation card (Carte de rapatrié) No. 0634141 of the Ministry of Prisoners, Deportees and Refugees, a provisional identity card: category P.G. (prisoner of war), arrived in Germany in June 1940 ; Merkine Joseph, single, born 25.1.1907, father Henri Merkine, returning to his father at 28 rue Simart. The stamps record the way home: the repatriation centre at Saverne in Alsace , the medical check and the prints of both index fingers, a premium of 1,000 francs and the demobilisation premium, civilian clothes, a food card from the town hall of the 18th arrondissement on 25.5.1945, and the demobilisation certificate of 28.5.1945 . (5) May 1956, the veteran: the combatant card (Carte du combattant) No. 652196 of the National Office for Veterans and War Victims, Seine office, in the name of Joseph Merkine, 28 rue Simart, with his photograph at 49 and his signature; on the back the Combatant's Cross (Croix du combattant) under the decree of 24.8.1930. Among the roughly 1.6 million French prisoners of war taken to Germany in 1940 were about 13,000 Jews. From 1941 they were segregated within the camps, but their prisoner of war status under the 1929 Geneva Convention held until the end of the war . In 1945 Merkine returned to his father, to the same flat in rue Simart. Used condition: the repatriation card torn along the fold into two parts, with edge tears and perforation holes; the combatant card worn at the edges, with two metal eyelets; the FSGT licence and the allowance certificate with age spots and folds, exactly as photographed.