Case of brown velvet, containing 24 (emergency) coins

This object is part of the estate of Isabel Elon-Wachenheimer (1928–2010). Until her death, it belonged along with the other objects from the estate to the private sphere of Isabel Wachenheimer. In that private context, these objects are together and individually mementos—of the youth, parents, and family of Isabel Wachenheimer before and during the Shoah and of her life after the Second World War. Isabel Wachenheimer, who was imprisoned from June 1943 to May 1945 in Camp Westerbork, Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, and Lenzing an der Oberdonau (a subcamp of Mauthausen), survived the Shoah. Her parents—Eugène Wachenheimer and Else Wachenheimer-Moos—were murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau on 14 October 1944. The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, holds this object as NG-2011-97-33-25; its record gives material recorded as velvet (fabric weave); technique sewing; measurements width 10 cm x height 12 cm. Description translated from the museum's Dutch catalogue text; details are those of this museum object, and how far it represents a wider type has not been independently verified.