Holocaust Artifacts: Really?

This week, the German government agreed to donate 10 million euros to Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Center. According to Israeli Education Minister, Gideon Sa’ar, the money would be used to locate and purchase significant Holocaust documents and artifacts. This brings to the forefront an issue I face regularly as one of the few antique dealers in the world willing to traffic in Holocaust related artifacts. I get the question all the time from critics; how can I sell a Zyclon B cannister, the ID card of a death camp guard, a Jewish star, or an inmate’s striped camp uniform with a clear conscience?

To be fair, I get the same quizzical looks and harsh words from critics when I sell Nazi hats, flags, medals and uniforms: a big part of my business. Forget about the holocaust-related items; how can you sell those? Outside of my market, that is just as vexing a question. That what I do is legal in the United States, and I’m a capitalist, is not enough. Saying that side-steps a very legitimate and puzzling question. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. So why do I do it, or better yet, how can I do it?

For me, finding meaning is not hard. We are rapidly approaching the day when the last of the last of the original witnesses … survivors, perpetrators, bystanders, and liberators … are dying. For this reason, preserving these artifacts is more important than ever before, because in their presence, we cannot deny or forget what happened. These items bear physical witness to the evils that transpired during Hitler’s tenure as leader of Germany. They also help us explain the how and why?

Yad Vashem’s interest notwithstanding, most other museums do not share my view. If you don’t believe me, visit the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. After passing through a small atrium, visitors see a smaller-than-average SA Stormtrooper uniform display. Then with no context, visitors then enter a multi-floor warehouse of death that documents the greatest single horror visited upon mankind in world history; the systematic and government-approved slaughter of twelve million Jews, Soviet POWs, ethnic minorities, Freemasons, homosexuals, dissident Christians, and critics of the regime. Add to that the millions more who perished on all sides in combat during the war, and you are faced quite a sobering statistic. Using 60 million as the figure for those who died as a direct result of WWII, that’s almost 1000 deaths per hour, every hour that the war lasted.

It’s not enough to see what happened; we must learn how it happened. Seen through the lens of what one of my customers calls Naziana, we can gain a much more thorough understanding of Hitler and the impact he had on world history. By studying the trappings of Militaria regalia, looking deeper into the props of “pomp and circumstance” we can do just that; we can begin to understand the context that explains the how the Holocaust occured in a civilized society.

Having been a part of the military-collectibles culture for most of my adult life, Naziana helps me personally understand exactly how Hitler and his lieutenants assembled a team of previously civilized Germans to commit what is now known as genocide, in so short a period of time. Using the trappings of rank and membership, Hitler capitalized on a universal need for humans to feel part of a group, to be a member of an inner-circle of elites. This universal human need explains what made otherwise normal men with ordinary lives do very bad things before they became, individually, very bad men.

But what about holocaust items? Even collectors and dealers specializing in Nazi military antiques criticize me for selling an empty Zyclon B canister. Ironically invented by a Jew as a fumigant, this is the chemical used in the death factories like Birkenau, Treblinka, and Bergen-Belsen. For me the answer is exactly the same. These items serve as a naked reminder of “what happened” almost 70 years ago. There is no style, as there is with the SS uniform (Hugo Boss designed the first SS Uniforms at the behest of Heinrich Himmler). Unlike the Nazi Sword, there is none of that quality craftsmanship that Germans are famous for. A rusty can, a piece of paper, a yellow piece of cloth … these are raw reminder of the holocaust stripped bare for all to see. In their presence, no one can deny or forget.