The collection of more than 600 lots up for auction in Neuss, western Germany, includes letters written by concentration camp prisoners to their families, Gestapo police records and other documents
A group of Holocaust survivors has demanded that a German auction house cancel the sale of hundreds of artefacts, including letters written by Nazi concentration camp prisoners and other documents that identify many people by name.
The International Auschwitz Committee, a group of survivors based in Berlin, considers this to be a “cynical and shameful” auction, as reported today by the DPA news agency.
The auction is titled “The Terror System” and is scheduled for Monday by auctioneer Felzmann.
The collection of more than 600 lots up for auction in Neuss, western Germany, includes letters written by concentration camp prisoners to their families, Gestapo police records and other documents.
“For victims of Nazi persecution and Holocaust survivors, this auction is a cynical and shameful undertaking that leaves them outraged and speechless,” commented Christoph Heubner, executive vice-president of the committee, in a statement released on Saturday.
The committee criticized that the names of individuals are identifiable in many of the documents, lamenting that “their story and the suffering of all those persecuted and murdered by the Nazis are being exploited for commercial purposes”.
Heubner said documents about persecution and the Holocaust belong to the victims’ families and should be displayed in museums or memorial exhibitions and not “degraded as mere commodities.”
“We urge those responsible for auction house Felzmann to demonstrate a minimum of decency and cancel the auction,” he added.
A list of information on the Auktionhaus Felzmann website, published this morning, was no longer available by mid-afternoon.
The auctioneer has not yet responded to requests for comment on the survivors’ demand.
At least six million Jews were killed in extermination camps during the Holocaust, as a result of the “final solution for the Jewish population”, created by the Nazi regime during the Second World War (1939-45).
