1 Reichsmark Auschwitz Concentration Camp

Camp scrip issued at Auschwitz was part of the Prämienschein system introduced across the SS concentration camp network — a cynical administrative fiction in which selected prisoners received coupons redeemable at the camp canteen for marginal goods like tobacco or soap. The currency created no real purchasing power; it existed primarily to manage prisoner labor incentives and to give the broader system a veneer of economic normality.

Auschwitz scrip is among the most sobering material in any camp currency collection. The Campbell reference covers the broader KL scrip series, and genuine examples are exceptionally scarce — destruction of camp records and physical materials at liberation, combined with postwar sensitivity around the artifacts, kept survival rates extremely low.