According to auctioneer Meyer Zollman, acquired from a private collector, eight nail-sized steel matrices, each with numbering needles, to mark their serial numbers. Ink was pressed into the flesh of the prisoners.
Its website deemed it “one of the most shocking of Holocaust items,” with an estimated sale price of $30,000 to $40,000.
On Wednesday, bidding reached $3,400, after the Tel Aviv District Court granted the survivors’ request to order that the auction be halted pending a Nov. 16 hearing on whether to continue. Tzolman’s website was modified to reflect that sales had been suspended.
Among the various camps operated by Nazi Germany on Polish soil during World War II, more than 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, died at Auschwitz. It was the only facility that tattooed inmates.
Israel has no law against the private sale of Holocaust relics. A statement from a court spokesman did not specify the legal basis for Wednesday’s requirement.
Yad Vashem, the world’s Holocaust memorial center in Jerusalem, said they should have items like the dies to be auctioned off.
“Trading in these items is morally unacceptable and only encourages the proliferation of counterfeit items,” said Dani Dayan, president of Yad Vashem.
Interviewed before the court order, Zollman said he is the grandson of Holocaust survivors who were tattooed. He defended the auction – from which he would take a 25 per cent commission – to ensure the dead were put “in the right hands”.
“The seller is committed to selling either way,” he said. “We received calls from dozens of people who wanted to come up with this article and give it away. Everyone pointed out the name of a different museum related to the Holocaust.
Tzolman said the latter had been confirmed to have come from Auschwitz. He did not share the documents with Reuters.
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s website states that some of the Auschwitz tattoos were applied with a pencil and others “with a special metal stamp, with alternating numbers drawn by one-inch needles.” length”.
The Auschwitz memorial in Poland said the photographs of the dead looked similar to their collection.
“If they are authentic, then the fact that such unique historical items will be auctioned off, and not handed over to an institution that commemorates the victims and educates about the Auschwitz tragedy, is a cause for protest and protest,” he said. Deserves words of condemnation. Press Officer at the Pavel Sawicki Memorial.
.