Auction Of Nazi-Era Artefacts Halted After Auschwitz Survivors' Outrage

A German auction house said Monday it had cancelled a planned auction of Nazi-era letters, postcards and other documents linked to the Holocaust following criticism from an organisation of Auschwitz concentration camp survivors.

The auction, scheduled for Monday, had been set to offer letters written by Nazi camp prisoners to loved ones, files from Nazi Germany's Gestapo secret police and other documents recounting Nazi persecution from 1933 to 1945.

"We are aware that we made an incorrect decision in evaluating the consignment request and regret if we have hurt the feelings of relatives and victims of Nazi terror," the Ulrich Felzmann auction house, based in the western German city of Neuss, said in a statement.

On Saturday, the International Auschwitz Committee denounced the planned auction.

The committee's vice president, Christoph Heubner, called it "a cynical and shameless undertaking" to profit from the "history and the suffering of all those who were persecuted and murdered by the Nazis".

The auction house on Monday said that some of the items included in the planned sale were being provided by descendants of the victims, while others came from a private research collection of documents that had been "acquired legitimately on the open market".

The committee said that the auction, titled "The System of Terror 1933-1945", included highly personal records that revealed the names of victims.

Previous auctions of items related to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust have also provoked controversy and intense criticism.

In 2016, the Central Council of Jews in Germany expressed outrage over a controversial auction that allowed an Argentinian collector to acquire Nazi personal effects.

A 2019 auction of some of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler's personal effects drew protests from the European Jewish Association, which argued that Nazi admirers would be the most likely buyers.

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