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After an auction house in Norway attempted to sell a fragment of a Torah scroll looted by the Nazis, a public outcry ensued.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar also intervened and, according to a ministry spokesperson, asked the Israeli embassy in Norway to prevent the sale, reports the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA). “Thanks to the embassy’s efforts, the auction was canceled, and the parchment will be donated to a Holocaust remembrance organization in the United States,” a foreign ministry spokesperson told the JTA.
Previously, Israel’s foreign ministry had called the sale, which had been scheduled for October 18, “A Nazi celebration in Oslo.”
The Valkyrie Historical Auctions in Oslo listed the artifact on its “Historical 3rd Reich Items” online auction. The torah fragment lacks complete expert confirmation of its provenance. A description for the lot reads, “Very Old Piece of Jewish Torah Roll Plundered by SS German Soldiers During Soah and sent to a relative as a souvenir. This piece is handwritten in calfskin and damaged probaby [sic] by fire. It has the feldpost of the soldier unit written on it and directly written on it the address in Germany to whom it was sent.”
The house further described the item, still listed as lot 83 on the now completed sale, as a “sad and powerful symbol of the destruction of European Jews and their culture and tradition.” It was valued at between $1,500 and $2,000, and was won for $8,500 by an unknown bidder, though the auction house said the transaction had not been completed, according to Jewish News.
It is also unclear under what circumstances or to what extent the online auction house canceled the sale, or whether the Torah fragment was ultimately purchased from its owner and then donated. ARTnews’s request for comment was not immediately returned. According to its website, the Valkyrie Historical Auctions are “specialists in WWII and Holocaust-era artifacts,” led by historian Norbert Podlesny, who has written about the persecution of Jews during the Nazi era.
Though it has not been finalized, Remember Us The Holocaust (RUTH), a remembrance organization in San Diego, told JTA they had been working to obtain and preserve the Torah fragment using “appropriate treatment and respectful exhibition” methods. RUTH executive director Moisés Salinas Fleitman did say the organization received an email confirmation that the artifact would be donated to them, but was awaiting its finalization.
Some are now demanding further investigation into how the auction came about despite it being listed as looted, as well as broader efforts to stem the sale of plundered Jewish items. “This is not simply an antique or a historical curiosity. It is a sacred Jewish object that represents a community’s religious life and the devastating destruction of that life during the Holocaust,” Gideon Taylor, president of the World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO), told the JTA.