Dutch testing old soap for traces of Holocaust victims
Online vendor tried to sell soap found near concentration camp for 199 euros
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Dutch police have sent two pieces of soap purportedly dating back to World War II for forensic tests to establish if they contain remains of Jews murdered in the Holocaust — reacting to rumors that scholars largely dismiss as myth.
Police in the northern town of Dokkum said in a statement Friday that they are investigating the attempted sale of the soap online. The military memorabilia collector who had put them up for sale has turned them over to police.
Police said that based on the seller’s description “it could be deduced that it may be soap made in World War II concentration camps that could contain remains of dead Jews.”
Scholars largely reject as myth the idea Nazis had any program to make soap from the bodies of Jews.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press.