Jewels belonging to an Austrian millionaire, Heidi Horten, whose German husband made his fortune with the help of the Nazi regime, will go up for auction this Wednesday in Geneva, despite criticism from organizations fighting anti-Semitism and calls for the sale to be suspended.
The collection sold by the house of Christie’s includes more than 700 jewels, worth more than 136 million euros ($ 150 million). Next Wednesday only 100 pieces will be for sale and another 150 pieces on Friday. The remaining pieces will be sold online in November.
This week, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, an NGO known for tracking down escaped Nazi war criminals, and the American Jewish Committee (AJC) called for a halt to the sale. The Representative Council of the Jewish Institutions of France (Crif) joined the call on Tuesday.
The French organization described the sale as “indecent” as Heidi Horten’s husband, Helmut Horten, built his fortune in Germany during the Nazi government, a party to which he was affiliated.
One of the most notable jewels in the collection of Heidi Horten, who died in 2022, is a Cartier ring with a 25.59-carat “pigeon blood” ruby, estimated to be priced at between 9 and 18 million euros (10 and 20 million dollars). )
The sale could break previous records set by Christie’s, when the company sold the Elizabeth Taylor estate in 2011 and the “Maharajas and Mongolian Splendor” collection in 2019 for more than $100 million.
According to the Forbes classification, Heidi Horten’s net worth totaled 2.65 billion euros ($2.9 billion). But the source of the money for Helmut Horten, owner of one of Germany’s largest department store chains, has drawn criticism.
In 1936, three years after Adolf Hitler came to power, Horten took over the Alsberg textile company after its Jewish owners fled.
He later took over several companies owned by Jews fleeing the Nazi regime. Horten was accused of profiting by looting the property of people of Jewish descent.
The money raised from the sale will go to the Horten Foundation, set up in 2021, for medical research, child protection and other philanthropic activities.
“This auction is doubly indecent: not only does the proceeds used to acquire these jewels stem in part from the ‘Aryanization’ of Jewish property in Nazi Germany, but the sale is also intended to fund a foundation that mission is to ensure that a Nazi surname remains for posterity,” CRIF president Yonathan Arfi denounced.
In a statement, the Simon Wiesenthal Center urged people “not to reward those whose families have become rich thanks to desperate Jews who are persecuted and threatened by the Nazis”.
Anyway, the auction house agreed to host the auction “as all proceeds from the sale will go to charity”.
In addition, Christie’s has announced that it has made a significant donation at its own expense to research and education about the Holocaust, Rahul Kadakia, the auction house’s international jewelry director, told AFP.
For the American Jewish Committee, this is not enough. The organization said sales should be suspended “until a serious effort is made to determine how much of this wealth comes from victims of the Nazis”.
Source: DN
