An auction house in Denmark this week marketed a copy of an antisemitic pamphlet containing a Nazi collaborator’s text, drawing protests from a prominent European-Jewish group.
The document, titled “The Jewish High Finance” and featuring a foreword by Max Johannes Arildskov (1896-1986), a leader of Nazis in Denmark before and during World War II, was marketed with a bidding price of 45 Danish kroner, or $7, on the website of Bastion Auctions.
(After the war, Arildskov was tried and sentenced to eight years in prison. However he was pardoned on May, 9 1948.)
The business, which labels the item “Original anti-Jewish propaganda, WW2,” specializes in military and historical objects.
The text contained conspiracy theories about Jewish power and calls to confront it, including in the closing line, which reads: “Free speech is gagged in the majority of the country’s newspapers, but the truth must come out, so that the people, when the showdown comes, can stand united against any attack!”
Another passage reads: “It is no exaggeration to say that as thing progress, the question of the destructive work of the Jews may become a question of the existence of the kingdom as a Christian, national and independent country.”
The European Jewish Association condemned the sale and called on authorities to stop it.
“At a time when antisemitism and disinformation about Jews are at record levels, when Jews are forced to worship behind fortress like security, and when Jews are being murdered across the world, it is deeply irresponsible for Denmark to allow the sale of such hate on the open market, to allow others to profit from it, and to hand over texts that inspire those lurking on the dark web or in antisemitic chatrooms,” the European Jewish Association wrote in a statement.
The EJA said the object did not appear to have scientific, research-related value.
Bastion Auctions did not reply in time for publication to a query by JNS requesting its reaction to the criticism over its sale.
Danish law forbids public statements that threaten, mock or degrade a group of people on the basis of certain characteristics, including race, ethnicity and religion.
