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- An Israeli auction house has come under fire for listing 14 stamps used on people sent to concentration camps.
- The stamps, reportedly now worth up to $12,000, were used to punch numbers onto the bodies of prisoners in the Auschwitz camp.
- The head of the auction house said the sale was to "increase awareness" of the Holocaust.
An auction house in Jerusalem listed the sale of 14 stamps used to tattoo prisoners in the Auschwitz concentration camp, drawing outrage from Israel's Holocaust memorial center.
The stamps, which used needles to punch numbers onto inmates' bodies, are worth up to an estimated total of $12,000, per the auction house's online page. The items are to be auctioned off on November 9.
The lot includes an instruction manual from German manufacturer Aesculap, which supplied the seals to the Nazis. This booklet indicates that the stamps were for cattle, but the items are ten times smaller than average and were likely used on humans, said the online listing.
The auction house described the stamps as "a shocking and extremely rare museum item of unparalleled historical significance." This particular set is one of three collections known to have survived World War II, with one on display at the site of Auschwitz and another at a military museum in St. Petersburg, per the listing.
According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, such stamps were used by the Nazis to mark prisoners with an identifying serial number, using a set of centimeter-long needles that would pierce an outline of the digits onto the chest. Nazi officers would then rub with ink.
The World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Israel, Yad Vashem, condemned the sale of the stamps and questioned their authenticity, The Times of Israel reported.
The photo provided in the listing makes it difficult to determine if the stamps are legitimate, Yad Vashem told The Times. Chairman Dani Dayan tweeted that the center won't buy auctioned Holocaust items because it refuses to encourage "greedy traders."
"On principle, Yad Vashem opposes the existence of a market for Jewish or Nazi objects from the time of the Holocaust, and therefore does not purchase such items," wrote Dayan, The Times first reported. "Fortunately, the number of items donated to Yad Vashem is dozens of times higher than those traded."
Rabbi Menachem Margolin, chairman of the European Jewish Association, accused the auction house of trying to profit off the stamps, per local news outlet Hamodia. He wrote a letter to the Israeli minister of justice, asking the official to stop the "despicable sale."
So far, the auction house hasn't identified who listed the stamps. It typically sells old Jewish texts and historical documents, according to The Jerusalem Post.
But the head of the auction house, Meir Tzolman, defended the listing and said it was intended to increase Holocaust awareness.
"I am the last to underestimate or diminish the value of the Holocaust. I want to make sure that the item gets into the right hands and does not disappear from the pages of history," he said to a local radio station, according to The Times.