A batch of Second World War-era Nazi memorabilia has been pulled from sale in Richmond on Saturday, following national outrage.
Advocacy group the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs says it was “disgusted” by the sale, adding that the “items are dripping in the blood of 6 million murdered Jews.”
The memorabilia was a part of a planned auction by Maynards Fine Art & Antiques, which includes several WWII-era Nazi guns, daggers helmets and iconography.
But the item drawing the sharpest critique is a Nazi flag, listed on the company’s website as a World War II German flag.
The item was estimated to sell for between $150 and $250.
The Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver said its members were “shocked and disgusted” by the sale.
“The sale of these things is not a Jewish problem. The sale of these things to private people, profiting a private business, is a Canadian problem,” federation CEO Ezra Shanken told Global News.
“When you see things like this on display and being sold into private hands for profit, it is deeply disrespectful to the loss that this country and our Jewish people have felt for generations now.”
Shanken said such items are better suited to museums, such as the federation’s Holocaust Education Centre, where they can be presented in context and for education.
“This is not something that you need to be hanging in your house,” he said.
Hugh Bulmer, vice president of Maynards Fine Art & Auction, initially defended the sale of the items, saying they were a common product of auction houses in Canada and around the world.
“We’re selling arms and armour: guns, which were made for shooting people or animals, swords which were made for stabbing, killing people, naval uniforms from naval officers who probably enforced slavery during the 19th century,” said Bulmer.
“Everything’s got a story. Very often it’s a bloody story, too.”
Bulmer said he understood people’s anger about the memorabilia, and he acknowledged the horror the Nazi regime perpetrated on Jews, the Roma and LGBTQ2 people.
Bulmer argued his own family had also been bombed and interned by the Nazis and Japanese.
“I don’t want to do what Adolf Hitler did and burn the books, and get rid of every sign of what happened in history,” said Bulmer.
“I want that story to be repeated and told down the generations, and I feel we’re doing that, as well as obviously selling items to make money for our clients, for estates and for ourselves.”
However, late Friday, Maynards issued a statement saying the items were being pulled from the auction.
Jas Johal, the BC Liberal MLA for Richmond-Queensborough, also called the sale disgusting.
“They should know better,” he said. “There are certain things that I think most British Columbians would agree on, where it’s just plain wrong … to make money of Nazi paraphernalia.
“We have to learn from history, we have to learn from these very materials from that era. So that’s why it should be in a museum or an educational institution.”
The Nazi items are just some of the hundreds of lots for sale in the auction, which include British and Canadian bayonets, RCMP swords, South Asian weapons, vintage pistols and hunting memorabilia.