Auschwitz Committee wants German auction of Holocaust items scrapped
The International Auschwitz Committee (IAK) has asked an auction house in western Germany to cancel its auction of Holocaust artifacts scheduled for Monday.
The auction of personal documents belonging to victims of Nazi Germany is seen by Holocaust survivors and their relatives as a “cynical and shameless enterprise”, IAK Executive Vice President Christoph Heubner said in Berlin on Saturday.
The suffering of all those who were persecuted and murdered by the Nazis is being exploited for commercial gain, he said. Documents relating to persecution and the Holocaust belong to the families of those persecuted.
He said these documents should be displayed in museums or at exhibitions at memorial sites and should not be degraded into commercial objects. “We call on those responsible for the auction house to show human decency and cancel the auction,” Heubner said.
The Felzmann auction house from Neuss near Düsseldorf plans to launch the auction on Monday under the title “The System of Terror Vol. II 1933-1945.”
According to the IAK, the items offered include letters from concentration camps, Gestapo files and other documents from the perpetrators of the crimes. Many items contain personal information and the names of the people involved.
The online catalog includes an anti-Jewish propaganda poster and a Jewish star from the Buchenwald concentration camp showing “signs of wear.” The auction house could not be reached for comment.
