Germany has canceled an auction of Holocaust artifacts following backlash from politicians and outrage from Holocaust survivors, Poland’s Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski confirmed on X/Twitter.
“Thank you, [German Foreign] Minister Johann Wadephul, for the information that the offensive auction of Holocaust artefacts has now been cancelled. Respect for victims requires the dignity of silence, not the din of commerce,” Sikorski wrote on Sunday.
Sikorski described the auction as “offensive,” stating, “I spoke with Wadephul about the planned auction of items from the time of German terror during World War II in Neuss. We agreed that such an outrage should be prevented.
“The memory of Holocaust victims is not a commodity and cannot be the subject of commercial trade. Polish diplomacy appeals for the return of artifacts to the Auschwitz Museum.”
A group representing Holocaust survivors called on the German auction house Felzmann to cancel the upcoming sale, which was set for Monday and included hundreds of Holocaust artifacts, as reported by the Associated Press. The items listed for auction included over 600 lots in western Neuss, near Dusseldorf.
These comprised letters written by prisoners from German concentration camps to their loved ones, Gestapo index cards, and other documents related to the perpetrators, according to the German news agency dpa.
'The System of Terror'
The auction was to be titled “The System of Terror,” AP noted.
By mid-afternoon on Sunday, the auction information on the Auktionshaus Felzmann website was no longer available. The auction house did not immediately respond to inquiries about why the listing was removed.
Christoph Heubner, executive vice president of The International Auschwitz Committee, a Berlin-based group of survivors, expressed his concerns in a statement on Saturday: “For victims of Nazi persecution and Holocaust survivors, this auction is a cynical and shameless undertaking that leaves them outraged and speechless.”
He added that the history and suffering of those persecuted and murdered by the Nazis were being exploited for commercial gain, noting that many of the documents contained identifiable names of individuals.
Heubner asserted that these documents “belong to the families of the victims. They should be displayed in museums or memorial exhibitions and not degraded to mere commodities.” He urged those responsible at the Felzmann auction house to demonstrate basic decency and cancel the auction.