Banknotes Or Tokens

They're a sort of paper money I think, maybe considered as a kind of Notegeld. IMHO they are paper money.

The Museum article describes their being issued and used, in a somewhat limited fashion. They may have printed far more than they actually issued, with the "remainders" found after the camp was liberated.


Although it's in the same place as the serial number on higher denominations, the numbers on the lower denominations are just block letters/numbers. You can see the same thing on many Japanese Invasion Money notes.


They're not "banknotes" in the sense that they were issued by a central bank or government for general use. They're examples of "camp scrip". Both sides in both world wars issued scrip for use in POW, civilian internment and (for the Nazis) concentration camps. They're usually classified with (and collected as part of) the notgeld series.

And, given the "for the film crews" propaganda nature of the camp in question, they could also be almost classified as "movie prop money" as well.