Meir Tzolman and the stamps
Meir Tzolman and the stampsצילום: ערוץ 7

Plans to auction off equipment used by Nazi camp guards at Auschwitz to label Jews and other prisoners with tattoos has drawn a public outcry, and prompted an Israeli court to freeze the sale.

A lot consisting of 14 stamps - manufactured by Aesculap - used for tattooing prisoners held at the Auschwitz death camp, as well as instructions for using the stamps, was set to go up for sale at the Tzolman’s Auction House, based in Israel, starting on November 9th.

The stamps, which used interchangeable needles arranged in the shapes of numbers, were used to brand prisoners’ skin with the now infamous number tattoos.

Meir Tzolman, owner of the auction house, told Galei Tzahal that he intended the sale of the items to insure that they “get into the right hands”, and do not “disappear from the pages of history”.

“I’m the last person who would trivialize or diminish the importance of the Holocaust.”

But the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem objected to the sale, with chairman Dani Dayan in a tweet lambasting “greedy traders” who market Holocaust items.

According to Colette Avital, chairwoman of the Center Organizations of Holocaust Survivors in Israel, a petition drafted by her organization against the auction was recently accepted by a Tel Aviv court, which has frozen the sale.

Speaking with Reshet Bet Wednesday morning, Avital said that the Tel Aviv District Court issued an injunction in response to the petition, suspending the auction.

On the auction’s website, the lot is now listed as having been removed.