Nazi plate update

You will remember that a few weeks ago, my husband and I made a disturbing discovery: one of our serving platters used to be in the possession of the German Luftwaffe. It has a swastika on the bottom and everything. Thank you so much for all of your ideas and suggestions in response.

I contacted Yad Vashem to see what they suggested and received this in response:

באוסף החפצים של מוזיאון יד ושם נאספים פריטים
ומוצגים ששימשו את הנאצים ואחר כך נלקחו על ידי הניצולים לשימוש פרטי.

כדי לאפשר את העברת הכלי לידי המוזיאון ביד ושם, את מוזמנת ליצור איתי קשר.

If your Hebrew isn't quite up to translating that, here's the bottom line: they have a collection of artifacts like these, and they're interested in receiving this item as a donation. Next time we're in Jerusalem, we'll deliver the plate to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum. I'm excited to make a donation to such an amazing museum, and I'm glad they want the plate. I do feel that this item represents a pretty interesting history, and I'm happy that it can be stored in a place that will set it in the appropriate context.

I'll let you know what happens when we actually make the donation!

A creepy piece of history

My husband woke me up this morning with an unusual question:

"Did you ever look at the marking on the bottom of our big serving platter?"

My husband isn't exactly the kind to get excited about porcelain makers. In fact, his main concern is usually the food on a plate rather than its brand name. So I was intrigued. He refused to tell me what the mark was until I went up to look at where it was drying on the counter top. (I'd used it to serve chicken on Shabbat, and it had sat in the fridge covered in plastic wrap since then. The plate is very large and heavy, but I manage to fit it into our microwave.)

I stumbled into the kitchen and saw this on the underside of the platter:

Didn't quite catch that? Maybe a closeup will help.

After a little bit of Googling, we learned that FI. U. V. stands for "Flieger Unterkunft Verwaltung"-- inventory of the German Luftwaffe (air force.)

I've been serving Shabbat chicken on a Nazi plate.

Yikes.

Now we are in a quandry. Do we A) continue to use this as a normal serving platter, B) save it as an interesting historical artifact, or C) try to sell it?

Option A doesn't feel right. For one thing, I can only imagine the reaction of my husband's Holocaust survivor grandparents if they noticed that I served fish to them on this Nazi platter. These are people who shudder at the sight of Volkswagons, let alone dishes marked with actual swastikas. Besides, I think I've lost my appetite.

Option B is kind of tempting. The platter was obviously brought to Israel by Holocaust refugees (and ultimately left in our cupboards by the previous tenants). In a way, it represents Jews rising out of the ashes of the Holocaust to live in freedom in our own nation. Take that, Nazi pilots! I served Shabbat dinner on your plate! On the other hand, it feels wrong to give any Nazi item a place remotely resembling honor in our home.

So then there's Option C, selling the plate. It's probably worth about 150-300 dollars (see similar, smaller plates here: http://www.redrumautographs.com/His2.html). But people who collect Nazi memorabilia creep me out...  this guy, for example, seems way too enamored with Hitler and swastikas. The ideal option might be to donate the platter to an Israeli museum, but I'm not sure which one.

So, that's how I woke up this morning. What would you do? Have you encountered any Nazi items in Israel? Any suggestions?

Remember the Lirah?

Before Israel switched to shekels, it used "lirot"-- the Israeli lirah. I was reminded of this when I reupholstered some chairs I found on www.yad2.co.il  and found these tax stamps on the base:

These stamps probably date the chairs to at least the 1960s, but I found someone selling an almost identical luxury tax stamp on ebay claiming that it was from 1951. (The stamp was selling for 24 dollars! Too bad I already covered these ones up!) I'm pretty sure that ל''י is the EARLIER abbreviation used for the lirah, before Israel switched to a symbol similar to the British pound in 1955. Can anyone confirm this? Can you help me date these tax stamps?

At any case, I love the chairs. Here they are pre-reupholstry:

I'm pretty Zeus preferred them when they were grimy and worn, as in the picture above.

Can anyone identify them? I think they're Yugoslavian versions of Danish Modern furniture, but I'm not sure. By the way, I'm discovering that flea markets in Israel aren't great for finding really old antiques but are awesome if you like midcentury/Danish modern-- a whole lot of people moved here in the 50s and had to buy everything from scratch. This country is also a treasure-trove of 70s decor... let's hope that becomes trendy. :)

Anyway, here's one of the chairs post-sanding and reupholstery. The new fabric is micro-suede because that's the only thing our cats have trouble destroying. I stained the wood to a reddish shade (sorry, purists!) to contrast more with the fabric. I'm still getting the hang of reupholstery, but I'm happy with how this chair turned out! Click on any picture to see a larger version.

Good times. (Can you tell yet that I'm a little obsessed with decorating and furnishing our new apartment? Too bad we don't move in until April!)