My Grandfather lived in the Ukraine during world war two. We don’t know much of what happened to him during the war as he didn’t like to talk about it but we recently came across this in a box
I was hoping to get some insight into what it is.
Lagergeld (literally storage money or storage charges), during WWII, were employed within ghettos and concentration camps in replacement of actual money. This would ensure that prisoners would not have any valuable currency on their person if they should escape.
This money had been used by German authorities since as far back as the First World War, as records belonging to Western Michigan University show the production of 5 pfennig lagergeld notes dating back to at least 1919. (Source: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/wwi_pow_camps/381/)
The UK’s Imperial War Museum states that “Lagergeld was used to compensate prisoners in concentration camps for their work. This note was not negotiable outside of the camp for which it was issued and was specifically for use in their stores and canteens.” (Source: https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30047613)
That looks like German POW money tokens. I found a collection on sale at this link https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auction-catalogues/cottees-auctions-limited/catalogue-id-srcott10054/lot-c1545810-3d9e-4fc5-951e-a43c011cbf33