GENEVA: Jewellery owned by an Austrian billionaire whose German husband gained wealth under the Nazis will be auctioned off on Wednesday, despite calls from Jewish organisations to cancel the sale.
According to AFP, the complete 700-jewel collection, which is expected to fetch more than $150 million at auction, will be sold by Christie’s before the end of the year.
Since last week, just a portion has been available online. Geneva will host in-person sales of almost 100 and 150 pieces on Wednesday and Friday.
The jewellery, which included pieces by 20th-century designers like Cartier, Bulgari, and Van Cleef & Arpels, belonged to Heidi Horten, who, according to Forbes, passed away last year at the age of 81 and left behind a legacy worth $2.9 billion. The Sunrise Ruby, with a price tag of $15–20 million, will be one of the key draws on Wednesday, according to Christie’s.
The auction might break Christie’s previous records, including sales of the actress Elizabeth Taylor’s properties in 2011 and the “Maharajas and Mughal Magnificence” collection in 2019, all exceeding 100 million dollars. According to a report written in January 2022 by historians hired by the Horten Foundation, Helmut Horton, Heidi Horton’s spouse, who passed away in Switzerland in 1987, she had joined the Nazi party before being expelled. Helmut Horton.
‘Indecent’ –
Horten got control of the textile company Alsberg in 1936, three years after Adolf Hitler took power after its Jewish owners fled to the western city of Duisburg. Later, he took over several more businesses Jews had owned before the war.
Many Jewish organisations have urged Christie’s to cancel the sale. Yonathan Arfi, head of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF), declared that “this sale is indecent.” “This sale is also to fund a foundation to conserve the name of a former Nazi for posterity. Not only did the finances that allowed the acquisition of this jewellery come partly from the Ayranisation of Jewish property undertaken by Nazi Germany.
The Nazi word “Aryanisation” described a programme of taking Jewish property, giving it to non-Jews, and barring Jews from commerce.
A Jewish human rights organisation called the Simon Wiesenthal Centre (SWC) said last week that Christie’s “must suspend this sale until comprehensive research of link to Nazi era acquisitions is completed.” The American Jewish Committee condemned Christie’s choice to donate the sale’s proceeds to a group dedicated to Holocaust study and teaching.
‘Nazi victims’ –
“It is not enough that this sale will benefit a charitable foundation or that Christie’s will make an unspecified donation for Holocaust education,” the statement read. It went on to say that the auction should be postponed until a serious attempt was made to ascertain what percentage of this income originated from Nazi victims.
However, the auction house defended the sale.
Rahul Kadakia, the company’s worldwide head of jewellery, told AFP that “Christie’s and the foundation are well aware that all of the proceeds are going towards charities; the charities are child welfare and protection, medical research, and access to the arts.”
Kadakia says, “Christie’s is separately making a sizeable donation towards Holocaust research and education.” We chose to take on the project because we think the sale’s revenues will ultimately benefit someone. In addition to the 400 Horten lots that Christie’s will auction off in May, 300 more items will be offered for sale online in November.
