Auction of Nazi property halted
Items up for auction in Paris included a monogrammed towel belonging to Adolf Hitler and Herman Göring's passport
A PLANNED auction in Paris of personal items belonging to Adolf Hitler and Herman Göring has been cancelled.
The Conseil des Ventes Volontaires (CVV) said that the sale at Drouot on April 26 would not go ahead following protests from Jewish organisations. It said that the auction house had decided to cancel the sale.
The Vermot de Pas auction house, which had organised the sale said that it had faced “political pressure” including “insulting emails and phone calls”.
The 40 items intended for sale included a monogrammed towel belonging to Adolf Hitler, a wooden chest emblazoned with swastikas, Herman Göring’s passport and a 17th-century manuscript presented to Göring in 1935.
They had been brought to France from the Bavarian Alps in 1945.
Culture minister Aurélie Filippetti said she welcomed the decision, describing it as, “necessary in light of history and morality”. Her office said she had sent a letter to France's auctions authority asking for the sale to be stopped.
The National Bureau of Vigilance against Anti-Semitism (BNVCA) had described the sale as sale “obscene” and “likely to offend victims of Nazism”.
The Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF) also demanded the cancellation of the sale saying it was “insulting the memory of the victims of Nazi barbarism”.
