Australian Jews urge bidders to donate ‘horrific’ Nazi items from auction to museum
Memorabilia included album of 500 ‘very disturbing’ photos from inside concentration camps, with ‘Jews hanging in streets’
The New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies has urged anyone who took part in a purchase of Nazi memorabilia in a local auction to donate the items, which include “horrific” pictures of dead Jews in concentration camps, to a local Jewish museum.
“These disturbing photos and symbols are a chilling reminder of a horrific period in history and belong in museums to remember the horrors of the Holocaust, not flogged off to the highest bidder at auction,” Darren Bark, NSW Jewish Board of Deputies chief executive, told the UK’s Guardian newspaper last week.
“We urge those who bought these despicable items to donate them to the Sydney Jewish Museum so it can continue to educate the community and the next generation about the horrors of mankind,” Bark said.
The auction, held in the first week of January by the local Danielle Elizabeth auction house, included 143 items ranging from “Jews not wanted” signs to rings, stamps, books and SS paraphernalia.
The highest-selling item was an album of 500 photos from within the concentration camps labeled “Approx 500 Jewish Atrocity Photos,” which the auction house itself described as largely too graphic to display and “very disturbing.”
“I have only included a couple of the tame photos to give you an idea … but to be honest it doesn’t,” the listing said. “When you flip these folders, they are filled with Jews Hanging in the street, in the concentration camps dying, piles of bones etc. It is horrific!”
The album sold for A$25,000.
A picture book with collectible photos of Adolf Hitler said to be signed by Hitler, Hermann Göring and German field marshal Wilhelm Keitel was the next bestselling item, fetching A$6,600, the Guardian said
It quoted the auction house as writing that a part of the proceeds would go to “Project Karma that busts paedophile rings… a major cause Danielle Elizabeth very much supports.”
However, the house did not respond to a Guardian request for comment.
The items were purchased by anonymous buyers online from Australia and around the world.
