The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (MKiDN) told the Polish Press Agency (PAP) on Monday that all items listed for sale that should legally be returned to Poland will be reclaimed.
According to the ministry, objects that were part of camp equipment or documentation, as well as items illegally removed from the country, are the property of the Polish State.
The Felzmann auction house in Neuss, western Germany, had planned to sell 623 artefacts under the collection title “System of Terror, Part II, 1933–1945”, which included documents and objects from Auschwitz, Majdanek, and victims of the Katyn massacre.
The auction was set for Monday, but was removed from the auction house’s website after intervention by Polish authorities.
MKiDN said it acted in close coordination with the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ambassador Jan Tombiński in Berlin.
In a statement, the culture ministry stressed the importance of immediate action to prevent the sale while also investigating the provenance of each object.
The auction catalogue reportedly included a letter from an Auschwitz prisoner, a Dachau medical report concerning forced sterilisation a Gestapo record documenting the execution of a Jewish prisoner in the Mackheim ghetto, an antisemitic propaganda poster, and a Jewish star from Buchenwald.
Other items included a letter containing a watercolour by Bronisław Czech, the Polish Olympic skier murdered in Auschwitz. Over 20 items from Majdanek were also listed.
Artefacts connected to victims of the Katyn massacre were among the planned lots, including a telegram from a prisoner at Starobielsk and a letter from another detainee at Ostashkov.
In response to the controversy, Felzmann told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that private collectors engage in extensive research and aim to preserve historical memory, not commercialise suffering.
Polish officials and historians have called for swift action, highlighting the moral implications of trading such objects.
MKiDN described the situation as "shocking" and emphasised the importance of international cooperation to protect wartime testimony.
(ał)
Source: PAP