The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage strongly condemns the actions of the Felzmann Auction House in Neuss, which planned to sell souvenirs and documents of concentration camp prisoners – emphasized Minister of Culture Marta Cienkowska on Sunday. The auction must be canceled, such practices are deeply unacceptable, she added.
The Felzmann Auction House in Neuss is scheduled to start selling a private collection on Monday, including documents and items related to victims of German crimes.
“The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage condemns with the utmost firmness the actions of the Auction House in Neuss. We do not agree to the memory of crime victims being treated as a commodity. It is not an object of trade, but a responsibility – moral, historical and human. Such practices are deeply unacceptable,” wrote the Minister of Culture on the 10th.
Cienkowska also appealed to the representatives of the auction house for basic decency and dignity.
“This auction must be canceled and the auctioned items should go where they belong – to institutions that deal with the memory of the victims of Nazi crimes with respect and care,” she added.
She also assured that she is in constant contact with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Polish ambassador in Berlin has already been informed about the matter. “I asked him for an immediate and decisive response. We will clearly demand the return of these objects to Poland. Memory is not for sale – and never will be“- she added.
Earlier on Sunday, presidential spokesman Rafał Leśkiewicz announced that President Karol Nawrocki is demanding the government take action regarding the auction of memorabilia of the victims of German crimes; calls for their return or purchase and for the costs to be added to the reparation claims.
The International Auschwitz Committee and the Institute also protested against the auction. Fritz Bauer in Frankfurt am Main.
The items include letters, posters and documents
The list of objects for sale at the Felzmann Auction House – as reported by the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” newspaper – includes 623 items. The documents include a letter from a prisoner from Auschwitz “with a very low number” to an addressee in Krakow. Starting price – 500 euros. A medical diagnosis from the Dachau concentration camp regarding the forced sterilization of a prisoner was valued at EUR 400. A card from the Gestapo file with information about the execution of a Jewish prisoner in the Mackheim ghetto in July 1942 has a starting price of 350 euros. The catalog also includes an anti-Jewish propaganda poster and a Jewish star from the Buchenwald camp.
The editors of “FAZ” recalled that the first part of the private collection was sold six years ago. Document buyers are located, among others, in America.
The auction house denies the accusations
In response to FAZ's question, the Auction House stated that private collectors conduct intensive research and contribute to deepening historical knowledge. Their activity serves to preserve memory, not to trade suffering.
Commenting on the position of the Auction House, the “FAZ” journalist writes that there is no guarantee that the auction participants' goal is to preserve memory. They may well be people with extreme right-wing views. She admitted that a ban on trading in such documents is not a solution, as it would only lead to the auction being transferred to the gray zone or abroad. “It remains to appeal for such collections to be transferred to public institutions to commemorate the victims,” we read in FAZ.
MFA: Not suspension of the auction, just full cancellation
We are calling not so much for the suspension, but for the full cancellation of the auction of memorabilia of the victims of German crimes planned in Germany, said Maciej Wewiór, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on October. – Items related to the crimes of World War II should never be commercially traded – he emphasized.
“We call for their return to institutions and memorial sites where they can play their proper role – a testimony of that time and a document for future generations,” said the spokesman of the Ministry of Diplomacy, declaring support for the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage “in activities aimed at protecting the memory of the victims.” The Minister of Culture, Marta Cienkowska, also previously stated that the auction of memorabilia of the victims is unacceptable and must be canceled.
In turn, Marcin Przydacz, the presidential minister responsible for international affairs, stated earlier on Sunday in an interview with Polsat News that the minimum reaction from Polish diplomacy should be to summon the German ambassador to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. – We expect urgent intervention from Poland, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Polish mission in Berlin to stop this inhumane auction. The end should be the recovery of these artifacts, all these souvenirs – because they are the property of the Polish state, most likely stolen by Nazi Germany, Przydacz said.
Sikorski: We must prevent scandal
The head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Deputy Prime Minister Radosław Sikorski, announced on Sunday that all artifactswhich were to be sold in Germany at an auction of items from the period of German terror, fromwere disappearing from her website. The memory of the victims of the Holocaust is not a commodity, he emphasized.
The Felzmann Auction House in Neuss was to start selling a private collection on Monday, including documents and objects related to victims of German crimes; He protested against the auction, among others. The International Auschwitz Committee, and President Karol Nawrocki's spokesman, Rafał Leśkiewicz, stated that the president appealed to the Polish government to demand the return of the souvenirs and, as a last resort, buy them. The actions of the auction house were also condemned by the Minister of Culture, Marta Cienkowska.
“Ambassador Jan Tombiński, who has been intervening with the Westphalian authorities in this matter for several days, informed me that all artifacts have already disappeared from the website of the scandalous auction,” Sikorski wrote on the X platform.
The minister also previously announced that he had talked to the German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul on this matter. “We agreed that such scandal should be prevented,” he added.
“The memory of the victims of the Holocaust is not a commodity and cannot be the subject of commercial trade. Polish diplomacy appeals for the return of artifacts to the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim,” the Deputy Prime Minister emphasized.
