Holocaust memorabilia for sale?

May 19, 2007 8:53 PM

I found WW2 "yellow stars," Jewish identity papers and other tragic items at a Hungarian flea market. What to do?

I went to an obscure antique market when I was in Hungary. There was almost nothing of any note at all, until I visited one last stall. There, the seller had a bunch of old historical items - military medals, old maps, that sort of thing. But on one corner of the table at the front of the stall, I was surprised to find a collection of 'things' from the Second World War which were all connected in some way to Jewish citizens. Several tattered and dirty cloth yellow stars which looked authentic first caught my eye. And then the really sad stuff - identity cards, passports, and other items (many with photos) whose owners were clearly Jewish, many of which were marked in such a way as to be clearly the papers of a people not only persecuted but on the road to sadder events. I don't mean to be vague or mysterious in saying that, I just can't recall specifics. These papers and whatnot mostly bore the hallmarks of Nazi Germany or came from other places at bad times (like Hungary at a period in which the country was very pro-Nazi) . . . it was obvious that the people to whom these things had belonged had likely suffered tragic fates.

I was horrified. Then mystified as to why these objects would be on sale at all. The thought of paying money for objects which symbolized such horrible things seemed repellent to me. So I walked away. But later, I was bewildered - perhaps it was better that I buy them and donate them to a school or organization that could use them to illustrate the horrors of the Holocaust. And there is the thought that by buying them myself, I'd be keeping them from some neo-Nazi thug who'd derive a sick sort of pleasure from them. But on the other hand, I'd hate to be one to help create a market for these objects - it doesn't seem right that anyone, even a poor stall keeper, should benefit from them.

In my religion, the Koran is holy (not that I'm religious, but . . .) and it is expected to be treated with respect. Had someone been selling copies of the Koran in such a way, a Muslim would be expected to "rescue" them. I assume this attitude, which is pretty prevalent in Islam, is common to Judaism as well. And had I felt that, say, a Torah scroll were being treated as a commodity, I would have bought it and given it to an appropriate party. But, of course, these were not venerated religious objects as such. In fact, they were kind of the opposite - objects meant to degrade a people and a religion.

So what would you have done? I've thought about it a lot and can't reach an adequate answer.

posted by Dee Xtrovert to society & culture (17 comments total)

Had it been me? I would've purchased them. Brought them home. Taken them to the Bremen Museum here in Atlanta. Perhaps, through someone seeing them there, the papers and photos might've found a proper familial home.
posted by grabbingsand at 9:02 PM on May 19, 2007

well, it's tricky and sad. i think that while we in the west have a more sophisticated--or at least more practice at--the nuances of the free market, the eastern bloc has a little catching up to do in terms of taste and where to draw the line at making a buck (or a kopeck, or whatever). also, a lot of these communities are in real need. some folks are just plain ruthless, others make deals with the devil to feed their families. in either case, i personally feel sad more than angry (and i am someone whose family did die in the holocaust).

your impulse is correct. those items should have been treated with more respect, donated to a museum, or whatever. it would depend on my financial situation and how authentic i thought the items would be--yes, it's entirely possible that they were fakes, planted to cause heartwrenched tourists to part with their dollars in order to "rescue" the items. i probably would have bought some and gotten as much information as i could about the seller. i would have tried to talk to him. of course, i'm a journalist by training and members of my family died in the holocaust, so my motivations are quite different.

i don't fault you for not buying any of them, though--your thought process shows the depth of your humanity. lesser people would have said, "ugh, tasteless," and moved on. ultimately you felt that not buying them would have protected them. that's valid, too.
posted by thinkingwoman at 9:16 PM on May 19, 2007

My sister lives in the Netherlands where she and her husband sell antiques and curiosities. They found some Holocaust-related memorabilia for sale somewhere, bought it and donated it to the Holocaust museum in Amsterdam.
posted by zadcat at 9:20 PM on May 19, 2007

I'm pretty sure I know what I'd have done.

1. Buy the things. It is repellent, but I think it's the best of a bunch of bad options.

2. Try to find survivors of the people whose stuff it was. If possible, their next-of-kin should decide what happens to the stuff.

3. If that's not possible, try to find a library or archive in Hungary that will take it.

4. As a last resort, try to find a library or archive elsewhere that will take it.
posted by craichead at 9:42 PM on May 19, 2007

While hawking these items may be tacky, I don't think that it's necessarily wrong to sell them, nor do I think that you're under an ethical obligation to buy them to rescue them from the seller. If the documents are real, buying them and trying to find any surviving family might be a nice thing to do, but I don't think that you're ethically required to do so.

I know that you're not in Hungary any more, but here's a link to a huge database of information that you can search by name to find out what happened to individual Holocaust victims.
posted by lemuria at 9:43 PM on May 19, 2007

This user has said that s/he works at the US Holocaust Museum. S/he doesn't list an email address, but you could certainly contact them at their general site email and describe your situation.
posted by serazin at 9:52 PM on May 19, 2007

A few more notes:

1) My first thought, when I saw the yellow stars, is that these could have been easily faked. But the documents which accompanied them, at the prices they were asking, there's no way that such elaborate forgeries would have been created for the purpose of sale. I can relate about twenty reasons to believe this, but trust me.

2) The seller was actually a "Chinese Hungarian" woman. In the 1950's, there was some sort of worker 'exchange' program between the People's Republic of China and Hungary. Living conditions were better in Hungary; many Chinese stayed. I did ask this woman, but her Hungarian was no better than mine and as best as I could tell, she was sold boxes of this stuff (not all "Jewish," but assorted legal and military papers and WWII-era stuff) for a pittance, after the fall of Communism, by someone who'd hoarded it. At least as far as I could understand.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 9:55 PM on May 19, 2007

At least she is trying to sell it, and not just toss it in a dumpster.
posted by b1tr0t at 9:57 PM on May 19, 2007

Also, I think I would have felt equally confused and conflicted by this situation. I can see where you feel inclined to just go away from the stuff, and also have the desire to help somehow. For the record, I'm Jewish.

I've periodically run into racist knick-nacks at flea markets - extremely stereotyped images of black people, made in a previous era. I even saw an antique "whites only" sign for sale once. There's a pretty active trade in these items here, and a lot of the collecting of these items is done by African American folks. Of course, these items are also collected by white racists. In the flea market context, I found it difficult (as a white person) to figure out how to show solidarity or confront racism in this situation. I wasn't positive who was running that stand in the flea market and so I didn't know if they were white or black or what.
posted by serazin at 9:57 PM on May 19, 2007

these were not venerated religious objects as such. In fact, they were kind of the opposite - objects meant to degrade a people and a religion.

I think you point to the heart of the matter. Your impulse, when presented with these things, was that they are like sacred things in a way.

Of course, in some sense they are just things. Treating them with respect won't help the people they represent, since those people are probably long gone -- so in a way it may feel like the respect is misplaced. (respecting things when we mean to be respecting people).

But in another sense, it's a profoundly moral impulse to "bear witness" to great evil, to ordinary lives cut short. This bearing witness often takes the form of a reverential attitude toward the plain daily objects of life (the famous exhibit of thousands of shoes at the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC comes to mind). Certainly collecting documents etc helps to teach us the facts of what happened, and to keep the factual stories of individuals alive. But beyond that, collecting and venerating these objects has a spiritual or moral purpose -- by looking at these objects and thinking about them and the people they represent, we (try to) give back some of the humanity that was denied to their owners. There is a lot of emotion and life invested in even the plainest things, and you were confronted with things (the stars) that were far from plain. In your thought process about this - which I hope and predict will go on long after this discussion - you are "bearing witness" in this way.

So - It's not strange or crazy to think of those things as being similar to sacred objects. I think you're right to think these things deserve respect. Your question is partly, how should I best show respect for these things? By "rescuing" and donating them, or by refusing to sully them by paying money for them? (Probably it depends on facts that you didn't have available to you at the time, eg are they likely to be genuine? What are the market conditions in this area; would this encourage looting of historical records for black-market sales? etc). It's not clear to me whether buying or not buying is the better choice, but certainly reflecting on the meaning of those things, in the way you're doing, is a morally good response.

(Also, if he doesn't show up in this thread, arco works at the Holocaust Museum, and might be able to help you thinking about this from the historic preservation angle, if you emailed him. There's an email in his profile.)
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:58 PM on May 19, 2007 [2 favorites]

i would have turned my back and moved swiftly away from that booth. holocaust memorabilia is not my style of interior design.
posted by bruce at 2:29 AM on May 20, 2007

I'm curious: which flea market? Was this in Budapest or elsewhere?

Was it a Chinese vendor at the Jozsefvarosi Piac (the large "Chinese market" in Budapest)?
posted by xanthippe at 3:37 AM on May 20, 2007

i would have turned my back and moved swiftly away from that booth. holocaust memorabilia is not my style of interior design.

(For some reason, this reminded me of how in that scene in Fellowship of the Ring where the... [...google search...]... Shards of Narsil are displayed on a pedastal as perpetual reminder that the strength of men failed).

As someone not alive at that time in history, far away, and so pretty disconnected from it, I can see some value in having objects like that around.
posted by -harlequin- at 5:50 AM on May 20, 2007

If they weren't outrageously expensive, appeared genuine, I would have followed the path of earlier posters, by purchasing them then finding a suitable museum/archive to donate them to.
posted by Atreides at 7:14 AM on May 20, 2007

Being of Jewish bloodline I can say right off the bat I would have purchased them.
I know my Jewish family had to run for their lives many times and many of them did not make it. I feel very much so upset when I see such things as you spoke of. I have heard many people tell me it's not a big deal and I should "let it go". Let me tell you seeing things like that for sell would be like showing a black man a whip and telling him it was one used to whip slaves and that you were going to sell it for profit. That aside not much you could have done so I would not feel bad or anything about it. You caring enough to ask is really a nice thing to have done and shows respect to the Jewish people.
posted by Obscurum at 7:47 AM on May 20, 2007

People donate artifacts like these to the Holocaust Museum all the time, and often they were purchased from street vendors like the one you saw. It is one of our mandates to "rescue the evidence," and what you saw in that market is certainly evidence of lives swept up in Nazi persecution.

Having said that, there is an enormous market of counterfeit WWII and Holocaust items, and there's a very good chance that at least some of the items you saw were fakes. The yellow stars in particular are probably the most-counterfeited item in this market. There's a book called Counterfeiting the Holocaust: Historical and Archival Examination of Holocaust Artifacts that is useful for identifying authentic items from fakes.

The identification papers you saw, assuming they are real, would definitely be of interest to museum like ours. If you happen to remember where this market was located, I would appreciate it if you could send me that information. I know of archivists and historians in Hungary (there's a new Holocaust museum in Budapest, for example) who might be interested in checking this out. There's an e-mail address in my profile, but you can also contact me at rcoleman (AT) ushmm.org.
posted by arco at 9:58 AM on May 20, 2007

One point to make about buying them: while technically it "creates a market," these items aren't being manufactured. The seller might not be able to find any more of them, hopefully. I'd buy and donate them.
posted by invitapriore at 10:06 AM on May 20, 2007