This stamp tells a story of allyship and the fight against antisemitism.  It could be something needed today, but it is from 1937.

Viennese born Irene Hand (1900-1975) was a human rights advocate and led a fight against antisemitism in her home country of Austria. For her efforts in resisting Nazi antisemitism she was recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.

Although Catholic herself, she was first exposed to antisemitism as a child when her two half cousins, who were Jewish, were taunted and had to return home for their own safety. This memory never left her.

In 1933 she wrote and published a pamphlet that challenged the widely held antisemitic tropes that Austrians hear from birth. The pamphlet and Harand’s other activities were reported on in the Neue Freie Presse, the Viennese newspaper that Herzl wrote for three decades prior, under the heading “A Woman’s Courageous Words Against........

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