AMSTERDAM – A Dutch-based online selling site is auctioning off letters written by Holocaust victims while imprisoned in concentration camps.
The seller, identified through the handle Bundum and a resident of Luxembourg, is selling 29 items on Marktplaats.nl including a letter which is described by this seller as…
“an original letter from Auschwitz dated Nov. 9, 1941 with censor’s seal.”
Another letter offered is dated March 4 and is contained in an envelope with an Adolf Hitler portrait stamp. Bundum’s other listing included adverts of Nazi toy soldiers.
This said seller affixed low-resolution images of the letters which showed a couple of fifteen-lined pages with writings that are hard to decipher.
The letters’ listings made no mention of prices but one item – a prisoner’s card from the Mathausen Concentration Camp in Austria – is going at $512.
According to Sharepoint website, Marktplaats.nl. has over 2,100 items which are from the Nazi-era including Hitler busts and swastikas. In a legal statement, however, the site’s management had made it clear that it bans selling of objectionable and repulsive items but that the users are the ones responsible for following the said policy.
The Dutch Auschwitz Committee’s chairman, Jacques Grishaver, believed the selling of these letters along with a number of Nazi mementos was a sign of the prevailing of Antisemitism.
“This should not be socially accepted, and action against it should be undertaken,” he said in an interview with the Dutch daily which first reported about the event.
On the other hand, the Dutch Center of Information and Documentation Israel (CIDI), revealed that they are looking into possible legal actions against the said website.