Jewish leaders, Holocaust survivors livid over auction of Nazi prisoner stamps

HANAN GREENWOOD AND YORI YALON, JNS

 Jewish leaders and Holocaust survivors expressed outrage Monday after an auction house in Jerusalem offered for sale a set of needle stamps used by Nazis during World War II to tattoo numbers on the arms of Jewish prisoners at the Auschwitz extermination camp.

“How can it be that the world is about to mark the anniversary of Kristallnacht—the Night of Broken Glass—yet Tzolman’s Auction is looking to profit from the sale of stamps used by Nazis?” said Rabbi Menachem Margolin, chairman of the European Jewish Association.

Margolin wrote a letter to Israeli Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar, calling on him to put an end to the “despicable sale.”

“I appeal to you personally to do everything in your power to prevent the humiliation of the victims and the sale of stamps that were used to burn the arms of millions of European Jews,” he wrote. “The trade of such sensitive items cannot be allowed.”