Germany cancels public sale of Holocaust artifacts after backlash

Poland’s Foreign Minister mentioned Sunday (November 16, 2025) that an “offensive” public sale of Holocaust artifacts has been cancelled in Germany, relaying info from his German counterpart, following complaints from Holocaust survivors.

Radoslaw Sikorski made the feedback on the X platform, saying he and German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul “agreed that such a scandal should be prevented.” The high Polish diplomat thanked Mr. Wadephul for the data that the public sale was cancelled.

Earlier, a Holocaust survivors group referred to as on the German public sale home Felzmann to cancel Monday’s (November 17, 2025) sale of a whole bunch of Holocaust artifacts, together with letters written by prisoners and different paperwork that determine many individuals by identify.

A list of details about the public sale on the Auktionhaus Felzmann web site on Sunday (November 16, 2025) morning was now not on the location by mid-afternoon. The home didn’t instantly reply to calls, an electronic mail and a textual content message on Sunday (November 16, 2025).

The assortment of over 600 heaps at public sale in western Neuss, close to Düsseldorf, included letters written by prisoners from German focus camps to family members at dwelling, Gestapo index playing cards and different perpetrator paperwork, the German information company dpa reported. The public sale was titled “The System of Terror”.

“For victims of Nazi persecution and Holocaust survivors, this public sale is a cynical and shameless endeavor that leaves them outraged and speechless,” Christoph Heubner, an government vice chairman of The International Auschwitz Committee, a Berlin-based group of survivors, mentioned in a press release on Saturday (November 15, 2025).

“Their historical past and the struggling of all these persecuted and murdered by the Nazis is being exploited for business achieve,” he added. The committee mentioned the names of people have been identifiable in lots of the paperwork.

Mr. Heubner mentioned such paperwork of persecution and the Holocaust “belong to the households of the victims. They ought to be displayed in museums or memorial exhibitions and never degraded to mere commodities.”

“We urge these accountable on the Felzmann public sale home to indicate some fundamental decency and cancel the public sale,” he added.