Outcry as German auction house plans sale of Holocaust artifacts and letters

BERLIN (AP) — A Holocaust survivors group is calling on a German auction house to cancel a sale of hundreds of Holocaust artifacts, including letters written by prisoners and other documents that identify many people by name.

The International Auschwitz Committee, a Berlin-based group of survivors, called for the cancellation of the “cynical and shameless” auction — titled “The System of Terror” and set to be held Monday by the Felzmann auction house.

The collection of over 600 lots at auction in western Neuss, near Düsseldorf, included letters written by prisoners from German concentration camps to loved ones at home, Gestapo index cards and other perpetrator documents, the German news agency dpa reported.

“For victims of Nazi persecution and Holocaust survivors, this auction is a cynical and shameless undertaking that leaves them outraged and speechless,” Christoph Heubner, an executive vice president of the committee, said in a statement on Saturday.

“Their history and the suffering of all those persecuted and murdered by the Nazis is being exploited for commercial gain,” he added. The committee said the names of individuals were identifiable in many of the documents.

Heubner said such documents of persecution and the Holocaust “belong to the families of the victims. They should be displayed in museums or memorial exhibitions and not degraded to mere commodities.”

“We urge those responsible at the Felzmann auction house to show some basic decency and cancel the auction,” he added.

A listing of information about the auction on the Auktionhaus Felzmann website on Sunday morning was no longer on the site by mid-afternoon. The house did not immediately respond to calls, an email and a text message on Sunday.