24 merken van de bank Lippmann, Rosenthal & Comp. te Amsterdam

These twenty-four stamps from the Lippmann, Rosenthal & Co. bank in Amsterdam were created by Isaac Weissenbruch. They offer a stark insight into a painful chapter of European history. Lippmann, Rosenthal & Co., also known as Liro, was complicit in the dispossession of Jewish assets during World War II. Acting under Nazi orders, Liro cataloged and liquidated Jewish assets, effectively stripping individuals and families of their financial means. These stamps, small as they are, represent a vast network of bureaucratic theft and the erasure of Jewish identity. Weissenbruch, though not Jewish himself, lived and worked in a society that was being reshaped by the horrors of the Holocaust. The banality of these stamps belies their devastating purpose, and the repetitive nature of the marks evokes the systematic nature of the Nazi regime’s project. As we contemplate these twenty-four marks, let’s reflect on how economic tools can become instruments of oppression, deeply impacting individual lives and collective memory.