A Gold Coast auction house has been blasted for its “disgusting” sale of hundreds of items linked to Nazi Germany, including portraits of Adolf Hitler and a hat worn by a concentration camp prisoner.
A Gold Coast auction house has been blasted for its “disgusting” sale of hundreds of items linked to Nazi Germany, including portraits of dictator Adolf Hitler and a hat worn by a concentration camp prisoner.
Just days after the federal government announced it was banning Nazi symbols, Southport’s Danielle Elizabeth Antique & Estate Auctioneers is marketing a collection including items linked to war crimes and worn by the SS as a “Huge militaria sale (Get it before history is banned and erased!)”.
Jewish community leaders have slammed the auction of the items, which they said represented the murder of 11 million people.
However, Danielle Elizabeth director Dustin Sweeny defended the auction, saying it was “not illegal”.
Among the items, which are taken from estate sales, are signed portraits of Holocaust architects Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich, a signed Hitler portrait, a desktop bust of the German dictator, numerous Third Reich war medals and military decorations.
Most disturbingly, it includes a “Jewish Concentration Camp Cap 1942” which has received four bids and the SS Death’s Head rings – personal awards which were given by SS leader Himmler.
Read the article by Andrew Potts in the Gold Coast Bulletin.