The FPHS is please to announce that Erik Lørdahl from Norway has been awarded the Harry Cope Memorial Award for 2002 for his three volume book:
German Concentration Camps 1933-1945
- History and Inmate Mail
Volume I - History
Volume II - Prisoners Mail
(Part 1 - Introduction and Camps A-K) & (Part 2 - Camps L-Z)
This extensive study in three volumes was awarded the F.P.H.S. Harry Cope Memorial Medal for Literature in our 50th Anniversary year. Produced in A4 format with illustrated card covers, with 700 pages and 1000 illustrations of letters, cards, cachets, cancellations and stampings, this series of books compiled in over 10 years have everything one needs to know as a collector.
It is published in English by War and Philabooks Ltd AS, at Gydas v.52, N-1413 Tarnasen, Norway. The price (sterling) £55 (postage extra), or through Peter High (Postal History 2000 publication sales).
 The history and founding of these camps before the Second World War reveals material which would pass unnoticed by many collectors and whilst many are familiar with the standard type mail sent by the unfortunate inmates it is surprising how much mail from those responsible for the camps is to be found. I was struck by a card illustrated from Waldsee to Hungary where the Jewish population were already aware that Waldsee was a cover name for Auschwitz as I had learned some years ago from a Hungarian survivor. There is a comprehensive coverage of the sub-camps which in my experience so far as Austria is concerned, I have always found them neglected by collectors. The official mail from camps to relatives, notifications of death and cremation, the return of effects, have a cold impersonality about them as also the information that the Quarry at Mauthausen was a public limited company registered in 1938 by the S.S. which supplied Vienna with granite for building construction.
Volume one covers the historical detail of all the camps while volume two covers the mail from Camps A to K and volume three Camps L to Z. The alphabetical listing makes reference to camps and sub camps easy and quick, the layout is clear and concise, and there is a valuations guide. This work will be a standard reference and of that there is no doubt and although it is a disturbing subject it is also a tribute to the victims whose letters will remain as long as there are collectors.
Keith Tranmer, President F.P.H.S.
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