When war broke out between Germany and the United Kingdom on September 3, 1939, England grew uncertain about what to do with thousands of “enemy aliens,” many of them Jews who had escaped Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe. There was great fear about these immigrants, exacerbated by claims about spies in the British tabloids. In a clumsy attempt to assuage these fears, the British government began rounding up and interning their immigrants. Many of them were sent to ten internment camps on the Isle of Man (IOM) in the Irish sea.

Many of the ten WWII camps are known to have issued money. Both metallic and paper internment camp money from these camps is well known and avidly collected. These coins and paper issues, until now, have all been from the various men's camps including Onchan Camp, Metropole Camp, Palace Camp, Sefton Camp, and Peveril Camp. However, the details of the women and children's camp at Rushen at the southern end of the IOM make for an especially interesting story. Up until now, some of the details of this story had been shared, but no examples of the unique money had been seen. In this presentation we will describe the interesting story of the use of this money, including information about the women who originated it and, at long last, will share examples of the actual tokens printed on cereal box cardboard. We will also share some original train tickets for trips that the inmates took across the island.

Ray Feller is Associate Dean and Director of Student Support Services at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her interest in numismatics began because she wanted an excuse to go on adventures with her father, Steve. As a child, she began the quarterly column “Rachel Notes” in the International Bank Note Society Journal. The column ran from when she was in elementary school until she was in graduate school. Ray wrote her undergraduate thesis on camp money and her doctoral dissertation on how collecting can help people process traumatic experiences. She very much enjoys research and is especially focused on money used during World War II. She and her father wrote a book on civilian camp money, Silent Witnesses: Civilian Camp Money of World War II, published by BNR Press in 2007. They have also co-written articles, given dozens of presentations, and they run the educational portion of the annual MPC Fest (an annual meeting for collectors of military currency and related objects). Alongside camp money, Ray collects short snorters and other notes with stories.