Germany cancels auction of Holocaust artifacts after backlash

The star of David at the Jewish memorial at the Dachau concentration camp memorial site where more than 43,000 people were murdered and over 200,000 were imprisoned during the Nazi terror reign from 1933-1945 in Dachau, Germany, April 24, 2025, a few days before the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the camp. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader, File) (Matthias Schrader)

BERLIN — Poland’s foreign minister said Sunday that an “offensive” auction of Holocaust artifacts has been canceled in Germany, relaying information from his German counterpart, following complaints from Holocaust survivors.

Radoslaw Sikorski made the comments on the X platform, saying he and German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul “agreed that such a scandal must be prevented.” The top Polish diplomat thanked Wadephul for the information that the auction was canceled.

Earlier, a Holocaust survivors group called on the German auction house Felzmann to cancel Monday’s sale of hundreds of Holocaust artifacts, including letters written by prisoners and other documents that identify many people by name.

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.

The collection of over 600 lots at auction in western Neuss, near Dusseldorf, 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. The auction was titled “The System of Terror.”

“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 International Auschwitz Committee, a Berlin-based group of survivors, 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.