In Noyes, in the state of Northern Rhineland-Westphalia, an auction house was planning to put up for sale 623 items and documents from the National Socialist period, including personal effects, correspondence of prisoners in concentration camps, and propaganda material of the Nazi.

Eine geplante Versteigerung von Holocaust-Dokumenten beim Auktionshaus Felzmann in Neuss hat Empörung ausgelöst. Fritz Backhaus, Sammlungsdirektor des Deutschen Historischen Museums in Berlin, über den blühenden Handel mit NS-Andenken https://t.co/0qeOQcXYvq

— DIE ZEIT (@zeitonline) November 19, 2025

The auction, titled “The System of Terror. 1933-1945”, included a “yellow star” from the Buchenwald concentration camp, postcards from Auschwitz, and correspondence from prisoners in Nazi camps.

Some items were described in the auction house’s catalogue as “extremely rare” or “limited in number”, with starting prices ranging from 180 to 12,000 euros.

“Cynical commercialisation logic”

The auction was cancelled following strong criticism from several research and memory preservation institutions. The Fritz Bauer Institute even denounced a “cynical logic of commercialisation”, pointing out that Nazi and Holocaust documents belong only in public archives and museums, not in personal collections.

The International Auschwitz Committee also called the auction “cynical” and said it was an act that deeply hurt survivors and families of victims. The Institute of Contemporary History also called for an end to all commercial use of Holocaust artifacts.

“Dignity is not up for auction.”

The foreign ministers of Germany and Poland also commented on the case. Radoslav Sikorski stressed that “the memory of Holocaust victims is not a commodity”, while Johann Wadefull expressed the expectation that steps would be taken to stop similar auctions in Germany.

The government of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, under the responsible minister, Daniel Liminski, announced the final cancellation of the process. Liminsky also said that a solution would be considered so that the documents could be given to monuments and history institutions.

Until the items were removed from the Felzmann Auction House website, interested parties could bid from $460 on a release certificate from Esterwegen concentration camp with a postmark and the signature of the camp administration | Dinah Riese https://t.co/oBdi1nAtmU

— Haaretz.com (@haaretzcom) November 17, 2025

Historian Wilfried Beer, who also works at an auction house, noted that sales of such items are common in the US, where many collectors have a family background related to the Holocaust. However, the director of the Noengame Memorial, Oliver von Wroehm, stressed that such material should be kept exclusively in archives and that its commercial disposal, while not illegal, is “highly unethical.”

The debate is not new: the same auction house held a similarly controversial auction in 2019, though it did not cause much of a stir at the time. And the phenomenon is not limited only to Germany, as similar auctions have repeatedly caused reactions on an international level.

Despite the auction finally being cancelled last Sunday, protesters gathered in Noyce with the slogan “Human dignity is not up for auction.”