Felzmann auction house in Neuss is advertising a sale it intends to carry out on 17 November entitled ‘The System of Terror’ Vol II 1933-1945.

Items on offer include letters written by prisoners in German concentration camps to their loved ones back home, Gestapo index cards and other documents belonging to perpetrators, as well as documents of a personal nature relating to the persecution and humiliation of individuals. Many of the documents contain actual, recognizable names of the people involved.

Stressing this point, Christoph Heubner, Executive Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee, said in Berlin:

‘For victims of Nazi persecution and survivors of the Holocaust, this auction is a cynical and shameless piece of marketing. It leaves them outraged and stunned. Their history and the suffering of all those who were persecuted and murdered by the Nazis are being abused and exploited for commercial gain.

Documents relating to persecution and the Holocaust belong to the families of those who were persecuted. They should be displayed in museums or in exhibitions at memorial sites and not be reduced to profit-making articles in a commercial context. We call on those responsible at the Felzmann auction house to show some human decency and cancel the auction.’