Is it me, or is this in really bad taste?

[Cannonman17]

I see these yellow stars and jewish arm bands as being every bit as important to history as the nazi armbands, I wouldn't mind having an original in my collection. The dolls, pictures, and other stuff I find mostly too sad to want and wouldn't collect personally. I don't understand anybody wanting pictures of dead at concentration camps or wanting the empty gas canisters, that I find repulsive.

[John Brandon]

I see these yellow stars and jewish arm bands as being every bit as important to history as the nazi armbands, I wouldn't mind having an original in my collection. The dolls, pictures, and other stuff I find mostly too sad to want and wouldn't collect personally. I don't understand anybody wanting pictures of dead at concentration camps or wanting the empty gas canisters, that I find repulsive.

Paul
Most, if not all the Jewish armbands are fake

For what it's worth, I'd stay away from any kind of that regalia.

It sickens me to the pit of my stomach that anyone could sell, or collect such misery

[Cannonman17]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not headed out to go get one now, but I can see how an original would fit into a WW2 collection, in my eyes it's part of the story. Fakes abound no doubt, as with SS or anything worth money I suppose but we don't stay away because of that. I almost get the impression that some find SS stuff to be great and anything Jewish to be repulsive.... that seems wrong to me I guess, I collect because of the history of the items, and the death of so many Jews, well people of all types really, is just as much a part of the story as anything else is.

[dave34]

touching a very "sore" subject

My good friend, since childhood, his grampa, was in Buchenwald.
He brought back and put it into a large frame:
The spoon he carved, some stuff he decorated/made inscriptions to like a cigarette lighter and cigarette case, there's a couple of camp money bills, one of the infamous cloth stars! some documents and a few other items..
As background he has put a large, frame being 50cm x 65cm, b&w picture of 3 or 4 execution poles.
To "top it all off" there's a piece of rope, runs allmost all the way round inside the frame, ends in a noose he obviously did'nt make himself.

This guy was there! He suffered and witnessed the crimes committed there BUT.. Here's the interesting part..

Years ago when i asked him why he had this stuff "on display" so to speak, he simply said:
I cannot forget and noone ever should.
Even if i took it down, threw it out or burned it, it will allways be there, as soon as i close my eyes.

I took it he used it as a kind of "therapy"
It allways has and still hangs on the wall in his study.

Problem is..This stuff is coming my way

What should i do?
What would you guys do?

[Cannonman17]

I think you're right, this is a very "sore" subject. Many opinions and points of view.

I personally would hang it on the wall in my study as a tribute to him.

[dave34]

BTW

An empty zyklon b gascannister was up for sale at a recent anitque/arms fair here in Denmark...
Don't know if it sold

[Adrian Stevenson]

Hi Dave, while I would never buy such items, if a Survivor of one of the camps were to give me some of the items such as you describe, I would feel honour bound to humbly accept them. He must think a lot of you and know your interest as an historian and know you would have them for the right reasons.

Cheers, Ade.

[jimpy]

I normally have a fair strong stomach for things, (ex army, emergency ambulance crewman, you tend to get that way, its the nature of the beast!), BUT the only way that I would have anything of this ilk in any collection that I own, would be if I had inherited it from a family member who had actually been there as an inmate.
As an aside, when I was at grammar school, many years ago, my religous education teacher was a concentration camp survivor. He never let on, until one day someone saw his "bar code" by accident and asked him what it was, he VERY reluctantly told us about it and what went off there.
I later asked my grand-dad if he had come across "the camps", partly because of what had been said at school and also because I had got a book from the library about them which had gone into fairly graphic detail.
I remember the look he gave me when he said to me, "I will tell you about them once and once only, then I never want to be asked about them ever again. You can ask me about any other part of my time in the army but never again that" That was how it affected my grand-dad, so how did affect others?

[3mk]

Dave,
I agree with the others,Its a honor to have a Survivor give you these things

[HARRY THE MOLE]

Whatever you may think of these items, if no-one purchased these things none would survive for future generations to see. They would all get thrown away. It is very easy to condemn other collectors for what they choose to collect, while at the same time collecting iterms of the SS or other groups who were known more for the atrocities they committed than anything else.

There are many people who view collectors of Nazi memorabillia as 'sick' for wanting such items connected to an evil regime. So it does no good for fellow collectors to think themselves somehow better than other collectors of things they do not approve of. Such items only survive because they have a value to someone else. You could also argue that the collecting of 'combat damaged' items is also sick. How many times have you read postings from people who have wondered what happened to the wearer of a damaged helmet or something else? I would never contemplate owning items connected with concentration camps, but I would also never condemn someone who did buy such items.