Holleischen subcamp scrip, 50 Reichspfennig note

Scrip, valued at 50 Reichspfennig, distributed at the Metallwerke Holleischen GmbH munitions factory in Holleischen, a subcamp of Flossenbürg concentration camp in Germany. While held at the camp, inmates were compelled to work in the factory. A special currency was issued to incentivize work output, although the money had no real monetary value. The scrip has a repeating “MWH” across the note, representing the Metallwerke Holleischen GmbH logo, and was printed in 17 denominations ranging in value from 1 Reichspfennig (rpf) to 5 Reichsmark (rm). The Holleischen subcamp was established in Czechoslovakia, near the German-Czech border, in 1941. It included a men’s camp and a women’s camp, and all inmates were forced to work either in the factory or in construction. Initially, the camps were constructed for Czech forced laborers, but in June 1941, the first French and Russian prisoners of war (POWs) arrived in the men’s camp. In the women’s camp, by 1944, the majority of the prisoners were French, followed by Polish people and Russians. There were hardly any Jews in the camp until March 1945, when a group of Hungarian Jewish women were transported from Nürnberg, a Flossenbürg subcamp, following its evacuation. Polish partisans liberated the Holleischen subcamp on May 3, 1945. American troops arrived two days later.