A German auction house has cancelled the sale of hundreds of Holocaust artefacts following widespread criticism, Poland's foreign minister has confirmed. Radosław Sikorski said his German counterpart, Johann Wadephul, informed him that the auction by Auktionshaus Felzmann would not proceed.
The sale, scheduled for Monday in Neuss, included more than 600 lots such as letters from concentration camp prisoners, Gestapo index cards and other documents from the Nazi era. The International Auschwitz Committee, representing Holocaust survivors, had called the event 'cynical and shameless'.
Committee vice-president Christoph Heubner urged the auction house to show 'basic decency' and cancel the sale, arguing that the items 'belong to the families of the victims' and should be in museums or memorial exhibitions, not sold as commodities.
By Sunday afternoon, the listing on Felzmann's website had been removed. The auction house did not respond to requests for comment. The cancellation follows a direct appeal from Poland's foreign minister to his German counterpart, who agreed that such a 'scandal' must be prevented.
