Australian antique auction company “JB Military Antiques” has come under heavy criticism – once again – for auctioning memorabilia belonging to Nazi Germany’s army in World War II.
The auction company, which has come under criticism in the past for hosting a Nazi memorabilia auction, is set to sell 635 items at their November 20 auction – including Nazi firearms, uniforms and even a Luftwaffe helmet that already has a high bid of AUD 17,500 ($11,330).
“Profiteering from the proceeds of history’s darkest crime is beyond sickening, and if Hitler were alive today, he would be applauding JB Military Antiques for celebrating his regime’s machinery of death,” Australia's Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dvir Abramovich said in a statement regarding the sale.
Abramovich was also vocal in opposing JB Military’s 2021 auction, where they sold personal items that belonged to Adolf Hitler – including his personal tableware, cups, a wine cooler, a metal hair brush, a hand mirror and silverware.
Abramovich warns of potential for use of memorabilia by neo-Nazis
“These cursed, blood-stained items, that could have been used to kill Jews and others, may end up in the hands of Final Solutionists who will proudly display them in their homes and use them to recruit new members to their twisted cause.”
Dvir Abramovich, Chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission
“These cursed, blood-stained items, that could have been used to kill Jews and others, may end up in the hands of Final Solutionists who will proudly display them in their homes and use them to recruit new members to their twisted cause," he said.
"We should spare a thought for the anguish Holocaust survivors must be feeling right now. And if the owners of this business took the time to think about the 1.5 million children murdered by the Third Reich and the mothers clutching babies as they were pushed into the gas chambers, perhaps they would reflect about trafficking in these instruments of death and stop playing right into the hands of hardcore bigots who have an appetite for these monstrous symbols,” Abramovich warned.
“The Holocaust is over, but the dangerous ideology that fueled the extermination of millions endures in today’s Australia," he said. "This auction desecrates the memory of the victims and tears to shreds the Australian values of democracy, and these tools of the devil should not be sold to the highest bidder," he said.
"This grisly trade has to stop, and we urge all state governments, as well as the Federal government, to immediately stamp out this ghoulish practice by criminalizing the sale of this memorabilia and banning its import.”