Calling the auction in Geneva, which opened online last week and begins in person on Wednesday “indecent”, the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF) called for proceedings to be suspended.
The collection, valued at between $150 million and $200 million, consists of 700 lots, including “unique and exceptional pieces” from 20th-century designers including Cartier, Bulgari and Van Cleef & Arpels.
Heidi Horten died last year aged 81. According to Forbes, she was worth $2.9 billion.
“This sale is indecent in two ways,” CRIF president Yonathan Arfi said.
“Not only did the funds that allowed the purchase of this jewellery come in part from the Ayranisation of Jewish property conducted by Nazi Germany, this sale is also to finance a foundation with the mission to safeguard the name of a former Nazi for posterity.”
“Aryanisation” was a Nazi term for a policy of seizing property from Jews and hand it over to non-Jews, and the exclusion of Jews from business.
According to a report published in January 2022 by historians commissioned by the Horten Foundation, her husband Helmut Horten, who died in Switzerland in 1987, was a member of the Nazi party before being expelled.
Read the article in The Australian (AFP).