{"id":800,"date":"2018-08-07T12:32:32","date_gmt":"2018-08-07T16:32:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/?p=800"},"modified":"2018-08-07T12:32:32","modified_gmt":"2018-08-07T16:32:32","slug":"the-illwo-sends-its-greetings-travel-laughter-and-nazis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/?p=800","title":{"rendered":"The “Illwo” Sends Its Greetings — Travel, Laughter, and Nazis"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Paul Kolisch was born in Vienna in 1883, which means he was a comfortable 50 years old in 1933 when he wrote this postcard. I’ve heard that Austria in 1933 was a complicated place to be, maybe not that fun, but apparently Paul was the kind of guy who tried to make it better. He was a well-known publisher of several newspapers, including the\u00a0Illustrierte Wochenpost<\/em> (“Illustrated Weekly Post”), and y’all, I found a comic-blogger online<\/a> who described this newspaper as “redolent with murder, mystery, secrets and sex” and said “the best headlines read like the track list on a death metal album.” The Austrian national archive registers the “Illwo” an “entertainment sheet for everyone” published from 1928 to 1939, and, bless them, the entire dang thing is available online<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It was easy to find out a lot about Paul because he was fairly well-known, and apparently it wasn’t that special or amazing that I ended up with one of his postcards, because he sent lots of them. He seems to have liked to travel and there are a number of postcards he sent to fans available on eBay and the like. This one was sent to a Josef Doekal and I don’t know enough about postmarks to know where it was posted, but I know from those other eBay cards that Paul was in Bombay around this time, so I’m guessing elsewhere in India. It says, “The India-traveler of the ‘Illwo’ Illustrated Weekly Post sends you the warmest greetings! Thank you very much for the friendly interest that you bring to the ‘Illwo.'”<\/em><\/p>\n

Unfortunately — perhaps inevitably — it is also easy to learn about Paul because he was a well-known Jew in Austria in the 1930s. He and his second wife, Stella (the editor of the\u00a0Illwo<\/em>), had a number of Swiss bank accounts that ended up being involved in the Volcker Commission investigation<\/a> into Swiss-Nazi complicity after they were mysteriously closed while Stella and her stepdaughter were held under house-arrest for a month in 1938. Paul himself was taken to Dachau and then to Buchenwald, where he died in 1939.<\/p>\n

I have a little coda to this story, though. Because of the Volcker Commission investigation, I was able to identify Paul’s living next of kin pretty easily too, and I contacted his granddaughter. At the time, I didn’t realize quite how prolific a writer Paul had been, and I thought perhaps she’d be interested in having this memento. She very graciously replied thusly:<\/p>\n

Although I appreciate your offer I would like you to keep it. My mother had a large number of similarly sent post cards, which we still have. It was something Paul\u00a0Kolisch<\/span>\u00a0did whenever he traveled to places considered exotic by the Viennese, which was often to Africa. I think they posted the pictures in the paper, perhaps in a travel feature.<\/p>\n

I am sorry to have never had the chance to know my grandfather, but he lived on in the stories told to us by my mother. He indeed lived a very interesting, unusual life and, I am told, was loved by all who knew him. An extremely kind, generous, and loving man. I am sure he would be happy to know that his post card is still valued and on its way to America.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paul Kolisch was born in Vienna in 1883, which means he was a comfortable 50 years old in 1933 when he wrote this postcard. I’ve heard that Austria in 1933 was a complicated place to be, maybe not that fun, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The \"Illwo\" Sends Its Greetings -- Travel, Laughter, and Nazis","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-postcards"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/back-640x408.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6y0gZ-cU","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=800"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":805,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800\/revisions\/805"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}