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"JERUSALEM, Nov 3 (Reuters) - An Israeli court suspended on Wednesday the auction of a partial tattoo kit billed as having been used on inmates at the Auschwitz death camp, following outcry from Holocaust survivors."
Warning: The linked article, which deals with the brutal method in which Nazi death camp inmates were tattooed and contains pictures of the instruments used, may be painful to read.
1. "Yad Vashem, the world Holocaust remembrance centre in Jerusalem, said it should have possession of items like the auctioned dies. 'The trade of these items is morally unacceptable and only encourages the proliferation of counterfeits,' said Dani Dayan, chairman of Yad Vashem."
2. "[Representing the 'private collector' who is auctioning these items, auctioneer Meir] Tzolman said he was the grandson of Holocaust survivors who had been tattooed. He defended the auction - from which he would take a 25% commission - as a means of ensuring the dies reached 'the right hands'."
Thanks to your warning, I won't read the article, but why are they being auctioned off to begin with? Why aren't they just part of the Auschwitz collection, for instance?
Thanks to your warning, I won't read the article, but why are they being auctioned off to begin with? Why aren't they just part of the Auschwitz collection, for instance?
I found the online pictures of those instruments to be very disturbing and chilling. But then, if I were ever to travel to Germany in order to see Auschwitz first-hand, I would find that to be very disturbing and chilling, too.
Yes, you would think that these items would be part of the Auschwitz collection, right? Somehow they fell into the hands of this private collector, and now he wants to auction them off to the highest bidder for a profit.
The auctioneer (who is representing this anonymous, private collector) says that he wants the items to go into "the right hands." But how can he possibly be assured of that if this is a public auction? There are a lot of questionable collectors of Nazi memorabilia who will pay big bucks for these items.
It just seems so irresponsible and distasteful, to me. And the fact that the auctioneer is Jewish is a shanda (if you ask me). I think that the Israeli court was right to put a stop to it -- even if the stop is only temporary while they weigh the opinions of those Holocaust survivors who objected to this auction.
I found the online pictures of those instruments to be very disturbing and chilling. But then, if I were ever to travel to Germany in order to see Auschwitz first-hand, I would find that to be very disturbing and chilling, too.
Yes, you would think that these items would be part of the Auschwitz collection, right? Somehow they fell into the hands of this private collector, and now he wants to auction them off to the highest bidder for a profit.
The auctioneer (who is representing this anonymous, private collector) says that he wants the items to go into "the right hands." But how can he possibly be assured of that if this is a public auction? There are a lot of questionable collectors of Nazi memorabilia who will pay big bucks for these items.
It just seems so irresponsible and distasteful, to me. And the fact that the auctioneer is Jewish is a shanda (if you ask me). I think that the Israeli court was right to put a stop to it -- even if the stop is only temporary while they weigh the opinions of those Holocaust survivors who objected to this auction.
The auctioneer is Jewish??? (I learned a new word, shanda, thank you for that ). I hope the court issues a permanent injunction because whoever this "private collector" is, is highly questionable, too, to say the least!
I found the online pictures of those instruments to be very disturbing and chilling. But then, if I were ever to travel to Germany in order to see Auschwitz first-hand, I would find that to be very disturbing and chilling, too.
Yes, you would think that these items would be part of the Auschwitz collection, right? Somehow they fell into the hands of this private collector, and now he wants to auction them off to the highest bidder for a profit.
The auctioneer (who is representing this anonymous, private collector) says that he wants the items to go into "the right hands." But how can he possibly be assured of that if this is a public auction? There are a lot of questionable collectors of Nazi memorabilia who will pay big bucks for these items.
It just seems so irresponsible and distasteful, to me. And the fact that the auctioneer is Jewish is a shanda (if you ask me). I think that the Israeli court was right to put a stop to it -- even if the stop is only temporary while they weigh the opinions of those Holocaust survivors who objected to this auction.
The heinous human tendency to want to profit from the abhorrent, abominable, atrocious, and the unspeakable seems to have gained acendancy in today's world, Rachel. The only "right hands" are the Auschwitz Museum, not some rich sick collector of evil Nazi memorabilia.
The heinous human tendency to want to profit from the abhorrent, abominable, atrocious, and the unspeakable seems to have gained acendancy in today's world, Rachel. The only "right hands" are the Auschwitz Museum, not some rich sick collector of evil Nazi memorabilia.
Thanks for your kind empathy, Mystic.
The article said that "Israel has no law against private sales of Holocaust relics." I'm thinking this may be so that Yad Vashem can use donated funds to purchase items such as this.
Will the result of this current situation be the eventual enactment of a law in Israel against the auctioning of Holocaust relics? There are already international laws against the sale of items that had been looted by the Nazis -- which leads me to question how the "private collector" in this particular case had come into possession of this Holocaust relic. I hope that more information on this news story will be forthcoming.
Profiteering from the suffering of others is disgusting.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rachel NewYork
I found the online pictures of those instruments to be very disturbing and chilling. But then, if I were ever to travel to Germany in order to see Auschwitz first-hand, I would find that to be very disturbing and chilling, too.
Auschwitz is in Poland.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rachel NewYork
There are already international laws against the sale of items that had been looted by the Nazis -- which leads me to question how the "private collector" in this particular case had come into possession of this Holocaust relic. I hope that more information on this news story will be forthcoming.
Of course it is. I was so rattled by that news article that I mistook the actual location of the death camp for the source of its construction.
I have never visited one of these death camps. I know that we have some members of this forum who have made that painful journey, and I have friends who have also done so but who find it difficult to speak about.
I've seen some disturbing stuff right here in my own backyard, so to speak. Here on Long Island in the 1930s we once had a thriving Nazi community called Camp Siegfried. (Google "Camp Siegfried" and you'll find articles about it.) After the war, the name of Camp Siegfried was changed, but one can still go and see where it once existed. Of course, Camp Siegfried wasn't a Nazi death camp -- it was merely a breeding ground for Nazi ideology.
Things haven't changed all that much on Long Island, except that the haters had gone underground with their hatred during the years between the end of WW II and today. However, they are now rising up again on Long Island, emboldened once more.
This past April a man named Christopher Keller was finally caught and indicted for hate crimes, following a several-month-long spree of targeting both Jews and gays throughout Long Island and shooting his gun into their homes. You can Google "Christopher Keller Long Island" for those news articles. These people find each other through social media, they connect, and they organize.
There is a moderator who only yesterday banned a troll who had been posting Nazi hate symbols in the Long Island forum. I won't mention our heroic moderator's name here (unless she wants me to) because we don't really discuss forum moderation. But I did let her know privately that she has my absolute respect and gratitude.
My gut reaction, totally divorced from any opinion I have as an attorney, is that that kind of auction is utterly horrific and has no redeeming benefit. How can such a tattoo kit wind up in the "right hands"?
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The poison that was the German American Bund was all over the NY metro with half a dozen camps besides the one on Long Island. I remember hearing stories of a strong "Bund" presence in Rockland County back in the 30's rather ironic considering the concentration of Hassidic and Orthodox communities that are there today.
Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_American_Bund
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). I hope the court issues a permanent injunction because whoever this "private collector" is, is highly questionable, too, to say the least!
I was so rattled by that news article that I mistook the actual location of the death camp for the source of its construction.
