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An unusual identification badge

Sydney Jewish Museum

Sydney Jewish Museum
Darlinghurst, Australia

Cloth badge belonging to Golda Fersztenfeld that identified her as a Jewish political prisoner in Ober-Altstadt, a subcamp of Gross-Rosen. The badge comprises a rectangular bar of cream coloured fabric with the number 21989 handstitched in red thread, above a red inverted triangle topped with a yellow bar. Nazi concentration camp badges, primarily triangles, were part of a system of identification used in many camps in German-occupied countries to identify the reason the prisoners had been placed there. A red inverted triangle signified a political prisoner, while a Jewish political prisoner was identified by a yellow triangle and a red triangle forming a Star of David. Golda’s badge with red triangle and yellow bar was a variation of this, which, by late 1944, was more common as a means of saving cloth. It is likely that Golda was issued her number in 1944, when Ober-Altstadt became a subcamp of Gross-Rosen. Working in a textile factory, she may have been forced to make the badge herself, which would explain its rough, hand-stitched appearance.

Golda Goldstein (nee Fersztenfeld) was born 5 May 1899 in Bedzin, Poland. Before the war she was a dressmaker. Golda was forced into the ghetto in Bedzin in December 1940. In July 1942 she was deported to Ober-Altstadt, a female forced labour camp in northern Bohemia, later part of the Gross-Rosen subcamp system. She was liberated there by the Red Army on 9 May 1945. She spent months after the war travelling in Bavaria in search of family. She eventually found her nephew Alex, her only surviving family. Alex had been in Feldafing DP camp in Germany and they returned there together in October 1945. Golda lived in the DP camp for around two years before moving to France. In Paris she met her husband, Szulim Goldstein, also a Polish survivor. Together they immigrated to Australia around 1950.

Details

  • Title: An unusual identification badge
  • Type: identification numbers
  • Rights: Sydney Jewish Museum
  • Medium: fabrics

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