Adolf Hitler auction items will be bought by 'people who seek to justify the actions of greatest evil to affect Europe'
A number of items belonging to Adolf Hitler and his partner Eva Braun have been auctioned on Wednesday in Munich, leading to criticism.
Jewish groups have criticised the move, saying items such as a hat owned by Hitler, with a hammer price of €50,000, and Braun's dress, will be purchased by people who still celebrate the former Nazi leader's political views.
President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Marie van der Zyl, said that while it was important the lessons of World War II are taught and passed on, the high prices which the items were commanding was cause for concern.She told ITV News: "You would like to think that people would be responsible, particularly in times of increased populism and extremism that's happening in Germany and in Europe."
"Being put up for auction at the highest price is normalising and glamourising these items. That's what the concern is. And this will cause huge distress to the Jewish community," she said.
Ms van der Zyl added: "The prices that are being commanded for these items show they are being glorified and glamourised and people are prepared to pay these prices for them.
"They should be put in a museum."
The General Director of European Jewish Association said the "memory of the Holocaust was not far from people's minds".Ms van der Zyl added: "We are seeing increased anti-Semitism and to see in the survivor's lifetime these items being glorified and sold at auction is so painful from a terrible period in history, mass murder, trauma and absolute misery.
"I think it's really deplorable and the victims are still being made to look at these items as some glorified artifacts."
"We believe the sale of such memorabilia has little intrinsic historical value but instead will be bought by those who glorify and seek to justify the actions of the greatest evil to affect Europe," Rabbi Menachem Margolin wrote in a letter to Hermann Historica auction house, who are conducting the sale.
The auctioneers say those who purchase Hitler memorabilia do so from a position of historical interest.
Additionally, the house where Adolf Hitler was born in 1889 will become a police precinct, Austrian authorities have said.
The move ends years of uncertainty over the building, which has become a pilgrimage site for people who glorify the Nazi dictator.
Interior minister Wolfgang Peschorn said the “future use of the house by the police should send an unmistakable signal that this building will forever be removed from the commemoration of national socialism”.
Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938, shortly before launching a campaign of military conquest and racist extermination across Europe that cost tens of millions of lives.
The house in Braunau am Inn, near the German border, will be redesigned following an international architectural competition.
It was expropriated from the previous owner in 2017.