A German auction house in Neuss, North Rhine-Westphalia, put up for bidding items belonging to victims of German criminals. The information, revealed by journalist Cezary Gmyz, sparked a wave of outrage. President Karol Nawrocki and the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) intervened. Eventually, the belongings of Holocaust victims disappeared from the auction house’s website. Afterward, Minister of Foreign Affairs Radosław Sikorski posted on platform X, suggesting that the items were withdrawn thanks to his and Ambassador Jan Tombiński’s intervention. Meanwhile, the items disappeared from the auction website only after the media storm.
The German auction house Felzmann had listed, among other things, a notebook with schoolwork by a Pole forced into labor in a concentration camp, armbands with the Jewish star, documents issued to prisoners, and unsent letters from mothers to children detained in camps. Some items were priced at up to 12,000 euros.
President Karol Nawrocki strongly protested the sale of memorabilia belonging to victims of German criminals, urging the Polish government to demand the return of the items, or, as a last resort, to buy them back.
Around 1 p.m., the items disappeared from the German auction house’s website. Shortly afterward, Minister of Foreign Affairs Radosław Sikorski announced on platform X that he had spoken with the German ambassador and that the items had been withdrawn from the auction.
I spoke with the German foreign minister about the planned auction in Neuss of items from the period of German terror during the Second World War. We agreed that such scandal must be prevented, said Sikorski.
Ambassador Jan Tombiński, who had been intervening with the authorities of Westphalia for several days, informed me that all artifacts have already disappeared from the website of the scandalous auction, he added.
However, attorney Bartosz Lewandowski pointed out that the minister’s actions came too late.
Acting only after public outrage over a matter known since yesterday, after President Karol Nawrocki’s appeal and after Radosław Tadajewski offered to purchase all the items. What will the Minister do to recover these objects stolen from Polish Victims?, commented Lewandowski.
Businessman Radek Tadajewski also commented on the minister’s post.
I don’t know what the Ambassador was doing, but it looks like nothing. One letter (in words: eine) sent to the auction house, the embassy, and the German MFA by Bartosz Lewandowski was enough to stop the auction. Next time I recommend this model of action. Interventions with the ‘authorities of Westphalia’ are about as reasonable as with the authorities of Borneo. I encourage the Ambassador to urgently contact the Felzmann auction house (believe me: everyone there is at work today) because suspending the auction solved nothing. It only bought us time to recover the ‘collection of death’ whose rightful place is in Poland, wrote Tadajewski.