Nazi memorabilia

[Marymaymay]

Went to local car boot this weekend, man had a stall bedecked with a huge Nazi swastika/SS flag, selling mainly Nazi memorabilia. As a 3rd generation Jewish immigrant family, most of whom perished in the war, I was shocked and saddened by this. Someone wrote words to this effect on a local gossip site and over 60 people have replied - the majority basically calling the OP a dickhead, that the war is over, people fought for freedom of expression so get over it. Was really surprised by this response. I can understand that I might be more sensitive than most on this topic but can't believe that most people think selling this stuff is ok...if there was an ISIS flag for sale the same people would be going beserk! So AIBU?

I sympathise with your feelings OP. I would find it troubling.

My family is half German, so were on both sides of WWII. This means I grew being told what happened and how easily ordinary people can do awful things.

My mum has some silverware from the SS officers' mess, nicked by one of my grandparents. It's not displayed (it's emblazoned with eagles carrying swastikas). One day I'll inherit it, and I won't be selling it because I wouldn't want to give it to the kind of person who'd want to own it.

Yes there are many artefacts out there associated with historic slaughter and atrocities. The thing is, the Holocaust is in living memory, and people are walking around today who lived through that persecution. I would be equally disturbed by a stall selling machetes from Rwanda or KKK memorabilia. Grim.

I'm (culturally) Jewish, my late grandmother (who we lost last month) was an Auschwitz survivor, and historical artefacts from the Nazi regime and the Shoah are essential ways of documenting the horrors that were carried out.

However I don't think a stall at a car boot sale, where a huge Nazi flag is hanging up, is an appropriate setting. It's the kind of stall that belongs at a specialist fair, not at a regular car boot sale.

It isn't the same as selling artefacts from darker periods of history that happened hundreds of years ago, because the Shoah and Nazi Germany is recent history, and it's still very painful and raw for those who are still alive and lived it.

Yes, I should have said that I would happily give the Nazi artefacts in my family to a museum, just not to a private collector.

Collecting items shows that they give some pleasure to the owner. What pleasure could you have from looking at relics of an appalling past, unless you were at best ambivalent about what they mean?

Documenting the past through museums and other collections is a different matter, and I agree essential.

I thought there were controls on some of these types of items as they could fall in to hate propoganda?

I thought so too, I'm surprised to hear someone can set up a stall at a market to flog this stuff.

I believe that it would be more about the context in which it was sold. a family car boot would feel inappropiate but i would not have a issue with a specialist military history sale.

I think it is important that these items remain on display and are not hidden away.
They are part of history and part of truth and we should not become complacent.

I have a interest in ww2, and also history in general. I think one of the things that draws me to ww2 history in particular is that when we look at what the nazi party did we imagine them, quite rightly so to be monsters. A lot of them were well educated and culturally civilized people.

When some young people today think of terrorists they think of a east vs west, a cultural and ethnic divide. I think that is important for today's children to understand that horrors can be done by even the most cultural and advanced nation in world.
That is a lesson from history that i think our children should learn and we should not shy away from teaching it. Just because something disgusts us does not follow that we should put it out of sight.

It is predominantly the context in which these particular items were being displayed for sale that is a problem. It's not illegal in the UK to buy and sell items of military memorabilia but it generally goes on at specialist fairs - and people who would find it particularly distressing to see the things can choose to avoid the fairs in question.
I would certainly consider someone selling Nazi novelties at an ordinary car boot sale to be an arsehole (and an example of how bravery is not necessarily confined to good people - while it is brave to do something that risks you getting a good kicking, when the something you are doing is unpleasant and unneccessary, there's not much merit in your bravery) and quite possibly an aggressive arsehole - if t here has been a recent increase in racial tension/anti-semitism in the area then it could be seen as an actual declaration of, well, nastiness.

Car boot sales are often a bit lawless, though. You get a lot of stolen goods, for example, and they are apparently something of a good shopping destination if you want hardcore video nasties/porn (though this is probably on the decrease now hardly anyone actually has a video player any more). Though I have always had the impression you would have to know the organisers or be a Local Shop For Local People to get away with dodginess. I can't, for instance, see me lasting very long if I fancied setting up a table full of my erotic novels (even with their moderately tasteful covers) and a crate of buttplugs down the local car boot, can you?

I too would be shocked by this OP. "Memoribilia" of the torture and murder of millions is obviously disgusting.

On a purely practical level, the organisers of the car boot fair would have to have a licence from the local authority.

While the display of Nazi flags is not illegal in the UK, the council may have particular standards as to what they do and do not license. So it's probably worth flagging it up there.

Do people feel the same way about Apartheid Memorabilia from South Africa?

It doesn't take much of a search to come across plenty of abhorant stuuf for sale in S.A. and no doubt around the world.

I'm not sure what the S.African govt. stance is on this, but could we possiblly learn from them?

I worked in Holocaust education for many years and agree it's entirely about the context. Museum, yes. Specialist fair or event, yes. Bog standard car boot at the end of the road, no.

Ok. Here we go..

DP has a pretty large collection of Nazi antiques. He is fascinated with how the party organised themselves in such a short time and everything in his collection has the Nazi stamp, from cigarettes to cash, packets of sugar, soap powder, hand cream, the most random items you wouldn't believe. But he does own guns (deactivated) and ceremonial daggers. He is not a Nazi. Or a Neo Nazi or a racist. I can understand that if the op saw his cabinets she would be pretty shocked and disgusted but DP would do everything he could to try and explain why he collects them.

We do know a dealer who has found or been given items from concentration camps. He has a few contacts in Israel who he sends them to, not to profit but to, 'send them home'. None of the dealers we know are Nazis, they are all revolted by what happened but that is not why they deal or collect.

A car boot is NOT the place for these things, it's little comfort to the OP but Nazi 'memorabilia' is one of the biggest reproduction industries going and I would imagine most (if not all) of his stuff was fake.

We are taking my son (15) to Auschwitz next year, we both think it's important.

So. Do I have to name change now and stick to fluffy threads, eek!

Why is the context a problem?

I love the fact that just very occasionally I can see something of historical significance at eg: a boot sale and snap it up, even though I am not a collector of memorabilia.

I think that this sort of thing is often about history enthusiasts being interested in history, and as ever, people read something dirty and dark into someone else's interest because (as someone who doesn't share that interest) it strikes them as a bad thing.

We get this same thing on MN with everything from adults who have train sets, to clay pigeon shooting. There is actually sometimes an explanation for other people's interest in things that isn't "they are a wrongun".

I'm not Jewish and I find this sort of thing upsetting. Often go to Vienna and am saddened to see all the Nazi war memorabilia in the second hand shops (especially in the context of what happened to Jewish people there) but then I guess at least it meant someone got rid of it and no one has bought it!

Yanbu op. Agree with sgb and others, a car boot isn't an appropriate place for this stuff to be out on display, I know I would feel angry about seeing swastika related items on sale, even if fakes

Perhaps we're a bit selective about what we get upset about. We are happy enough to buy iPads and cheap clothing made by exploited people who work in the most appalling conditions.

Yes, it's not especially palatable that some people are making a few quid by selling possibly fake goods to customers who may - or may not - have dubious interests.

But nobody now is suffering as a result of these purchases....

sadly even buddha has been used to oppress back just after its founding a emperor of the region went about conquing neirbours in the name of buddism and forced convertions (and bad stuff if they refused to convert)

"Seriously? You believe this nonsense?"

It actually isn't nonsense, at all.

So what is it? PC gone too far?

We didn't fight for flags, we fought for an ideal and that ideal needs to be upheld. Selling such memorabilia is illegal in many european countries, it doesn't make them forget, it doesn't make them less aware. Nor does it contribute to the increase in far right thinking.

hellkitty - It's interesting to hear your perspective, and I imagine it took some balls to share it here .

I'm waiting to get flamed Eek!
It's our pension.

For me there'd be a distinction between saying,

1. 'I am interested in these historical artefacts and want to collect them.'

and

2. 'There historical artefacts are valuable to others and I want to sell them at a profit to anybody who wants to buy them so that I can live comfortably.'

I think 2) is dodgier than 1).

Trying to say 2) is relatively okay because you're taking a teenager - who may not want to go or be ready to go - on a holiday tour of a concentration camp, also seems a little bit doubtful to me.

Well it's #1, it's DPs interest.
As for #2, you can't hang onto stuff forever and either will be sold to fund our old age or passed onto DCs.
And DC really wants to go to Auschwitz, there was a school trip organised which then fell through so I just don't get the, 'may not want to go'.

People trade historical items. It does not mean they sympathize with the people who owned them.

People own, and keep, and sell items which someone in their family got during a war (spoils of war) and the people who buy those things off them are collectors.

Collectors do not necessarily agree with the historical figures, laws, religions or people associated with the items that fascinate them. Seriously, MOST of the time a person is interested in a particular culture's weapons, battle dress etc. is not expressing that they adhere to those people's ideologies.

The real issues here are

a) people assuming the worst of others, which we can't help with
b) the idea that even knowing people do study and collect historical items, but you have a cut-off point which for you, personally, a line that "morally cancels out" historical atrocities, and the Nazis fall short of that line (say living memory, or 100 years or something) while eg: the ancient Greeks might have done stuff wrong but the physical items and emblems don't offend you (swastikas notwithstanding).

if it's b, that's totally understandable, as long as people understand that to someone interested in the history, that line may not exist or may be completely different to yours, and they may view it without the emotionally charged point of view you take.

Does banning such items not make them more fascinating, though?

ggg

What does being interested in history (or the history) mean that you need to collect paraphernalia? Isn't that a sign of endorsement of some kind?

How would you feel about someone selling personal items of people who have fought for ISIS?

How would you feel about someone buying a skull of someone who was killed during the Khmer Rouge Regime (or, less controversially, any paraphernalia of that regime) because they are interested in the history?

If you are interested, buy a book about it, or go to a museum.