Berlin slams attempt to profit from Holocaust victims’ belongings

The German Foreign Ministry has sharply criticised an auction house in Neuss for attempting to sell personal items that once belonged to victims of Nazi concentration camps.

The planned sale by the Felzmann auction house provoked widespread outrage from international organisations, the public, and officials in both Germany and Poland, as per Polish media reports.

Following the backlash, the auction house withdrew all contested items and issued a public apology, admitting it had made a serious error.

In its official statement, the German Foreign Ministry described such objects as “priceless historical sources” that belong in museums, where they can be presented with proper context — provided the descendants of the victims raise no objections. The ministry stressed that the German state actively supports museums and memorial sites in their efforts to preserve and exhibit these materials responsibly.

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul condemned the attempted commercialisation of Nazi victims’ suffering as “disgusting” and stated that such auctions have no place in Germany. He made clear that he expects them to be prevented in the future. Minister Wadephul’s position was fully shared by his Polish counterpart, Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski.

The cancelled auction was intended to offer dozens of items linked to victims of both Nazi and Soviet crimes during World War II. Among the objects listed in the catalogue were:

• A letter written by an Auschwitz prisoner and addressed to someone in Kraków (starting price: €500)
• A medical document from Dachau concentration camp confirming the forced sterilisation of a prisoner (starting price: €400)
• More than 20 items connected to prisoners of the Majdanek concentration camp, as confirmed by Agnieszka Kowalczyk-Nowak, press secretary of the Majdanek State Museum

Polish Deputy Chairman of the Institute of National Remembrance, Prof. Karol Poliejowski, pointed out that many objects of this kind currently circulating in Germany were originally looted from Poland. “The items offered here are also the product of wartime plunder,” he emphasised.

Polish historian Bartosz Gondek described the trade in such relics as “morally unacceptable,” adding: “We are dealing with commerce in memory — items that should never be put up for sale.”

It is worth noting that part of the same private collection had already been sold at auction six years earlier.

By Tamilla Hasanova