The International Auschwitz Committee has asked the Neuss auction house to cancel an auction of Holocaust evidence planned for Monday. The announcement of an auction of personal documents of Nazi victims was seen by Holocaust survivors and their families as a “cynical and shameless venture,” said IAK Executive Vice President Christoph Heubner in Berlin.
The suffering of all those persecuted and murdered by the Nazis was misused for commercial gain. Documents of the persecution and the Holocaust belong to the families of those persecuted. Such items should be displayed in museums or memorial exhibitions and not reduced to commercial objects. “We urge those responsible at the auction house to maintain decency and cancel the auction,” Heubner said.
The Felzmann auction house in Neuss wants to start the auction on Monday under the title “Terror System Vol.II 1933–1945”. According to the International Auschwitz Committee (IAK), items on offer include letters from the concentration camp, Gestapo index cards, and other perpetrator documents. Many sections contain personal information and names of affected people.
According to the online catalog, anti-Jewish propaganda posters and a “Jewish star” from the Buchenwald concentration camp with “signs of use” will also be auctioned. The auction house could not initially be reached for comment.
