A “chess set made from paper in the Buchenwald camp by political prisoner Hermann Rautenberg, a Jew from Berlin.”
“On an old fishing boat, posing as a group of innocent boating enthusiasts, Herman Rautenberg from Berlin met with other youths involved in anti-Nazi activities. In spite of being arrested a number of times, Rautenberg was undeterred. In 1937, after he was betrayed by an informant, he was arrested again and sentenced immediately. He was sent to Dachau and a year later to Buchenwald where he was imprisoned for over two years. During his incarceration, Rautenberg made a chess game from bits of paper that he found in the camp.”
From the collection of Yad Vashem’s Museum, “approximately twenty chess sets that were used by Jews during the Holocaust. Some were crafted during the war, others were made before the war and taken with Jews who were deported from their homes. Playing chess helped to alleviate the suffering of Jews and allowed them a few brief moments of relief from the hunger, the cold and the fear, temporarily easing their loneliness and sense of isolation.”