Profiting From Evil
Blogger Jack over at Random Thoughts - Do They Have Meaning? has this complaint to share with us:
Random Thoughts- Do They Have Meaning?, Ghouls Who Profit From Blood Money
There are limits to free speech. There are limits to decency and this seems to be testing all of them.Who are these Nazi memorabilia collectors that the article refers to. Are we to believe that they are good people that are just interested in WWII gear. I find it hard to believe that the collectors are not part of modern hate groups.
The cause of his distress? The announcement that Nazi doctor Josef Mengele's diary is up for auction (1).
As someone who lost 98% of all of his relatives to Nazi extermination, my first reaction is that all Nazi memorabilia should be destroyed. But history, even the most disgusting and vile history, should be preserved. Book burning is not something anyone should ever see again.
To be clear, Jack is not asking for Mengele's diary to be destroyed; what gets his blood boiling is the notion that someone is profiting from blood money.
While I agree that no one should profit from the misery of others, I realize that it is impossible to stop such activities. Certainly it would be nice, although in violation of the First Amendment, to force all those in the US who sell Nazi memorabilia to send a portion of the sales to The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Perhaps the only thing we can do is what Jack has decided to do: "contact the auction house and ask them if they enjoy profiting from blood money."
I would prefer to see Nazi artifacts, like Hitler's Mercedes, in museums, not in the hands of private collectors.
ENDNOTES
(1):
Telegraph, Nazi doctor Josef Mengele's diary up for sale
Nazi memorabilia collectors are expected to push the price for the diary and letters of the "Angel of Death" responsible for thousands of murders at Auschwitz to at least £40,000.
...
The diary and letters were discovered recently in police files in Brazil, where he lived until his death in 1979.
The diary, which begins in 1960 when Mengele was 49, is to be auctioned in America by the historical artefacts house, Alexander Autographs, in Connecticut.
The auctioneers have refused to reveal the identity of the owner who acquired them in Brazil but have hinted it is someone "close" to Mengele's family in Germany.
