Nazi Artifacts

In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, the question was raised (again) ... is buying, selling, or owning artifacts from the Third Reich morally ambiguous?  Having recently purchased Hitler's hat, uniform and medals, I'm getting this question a lot lately.  The Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, while not overtly critical, suggested that I needed to ask strong questions about what I'm doing.  Artifacts like Hitler's personal effects, they suggest, are legitimate only in a museum setting, and should not be sold for profit.

So let me get this straight. In a world where Hitler is a billion dollar industry ... where documentaries, books and museums are contributing to the telling of history in their own way, it's somehow wrong for me to profit from the sale of artifacts to those who deem artifacts important to their understanding of history?  Is Rabbi Heir at the Museum of Tolerance working for free?  Does the History Channel produce documentaries without compensation?  How about the countless authors who publish outstanding books on the subject?  I guess publishing companies and advertisers should leave their profit at the door when working on Nazi-tainted projects.

Don't get me wrong ... everyone I just mentioned has a part to play in the preservation of history, but what's different about collectors and dealers?  I would even take it a step further and argue that in the history-industry, especially where Hitler and the Nazis are concerned, the dollar value of artifacts I sell are a rounding error, in the grand scheme of things.  Inglorious Bastards took in $400 million (almost 1/2 billion dollars), and it wasn't even historically accurate!

I think artifacts are the best way for some people to come to terms with what made the monsters of the Third Reich tick and I don't think that's so hard to understand.  For me and for others, artifacts like little time machines that connect me to history in the first-person.   Museums are curated, books are written from a perspective, and documentaries are produced.  Nothing wrong with that, no evil agenda there.