A German auction of Holocaust-era documents and personal items has been canceled following international backlash and strong condemnation from Holocaust survivors and Polish officials.
Poland’s Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski announced Sunday that the auction, which was scheduled to be held by Auktionhaus Felzmann, had been canceled after discussions with his German counterpart, Johann Wadephul. Sikorski thanked Wadephul for taking steps to prevent what he called a “scandal.”
The canceled auction had included over 600 lots, many of them personal letters from Nazi concentration camp prisoners to their families, as well as Gestapo index cards and other documentation directly tied to the Nazi regime’s persecution system. The sale was titled “The System of Terror” and was to take place in Neuss, near Düsseldorf.
The International Auschwitz Committee, a Berlin-based group representing Holocaust survivors, had issued a strong statement condemning the sale as “cynical and shameless.” Executive Vice President Christoph Heubner said the auction turned the suffering of Holocaust victims into a “commercial gain” and called for all such artifacts to be returned to families or displayed in museums.
By Sunday afternoon, listings related to the auction had been removed from the Felzmann website. The auction house has not publicly responded to multiple media inquiries seeking confirmation or comment on the cancellation.
Survivors and advocacy groups had warned that many of the documents in the auction identified victims by name, raising concerns not only about ethics but also about privacy and ownership rights. They stressed that these items should be preserved for historical education and memorialization—not sold to the highest bidder.
The incident has renewed calls across Europe for tighter restrictions on the private sale of Holocaust-related materials, especially items bearing names and personal stories of those persecuted by the Nazi regime.
