The controversial sale of a jewelery collection belonging to the widow of a Nazi Party member who made his fortune buying Jewish businesses in Nazi Germany has sold a world record £158 million.
The jewellery, which belonged to the late Austrian billionaire Heidi Horten, sold at a Christie’s auction in Geneva, Switzerland last week for a world-record public sale of £158 million.
But the sale was labeled “indecent” by Jewish groups because of Mrs. Horten’s German husband, Helmut Horten, who made his fortune buying Jewish department stores at discounted prices during the Third Reich.
Described as ‘one of the greatest jewelery collections’, the first batch of necklaces, bracelets, earrings and tiaras sold for around £124 million, while the second went for around £34 million.
The auction house defended the sale of the 700 pieces of jewelry, saying it could not “erase” history and that all profits would go to “a foundation that supports philanthropic causes.”
The jewellery, which belonged to the late Austrian billionaire Heidi Horten (pictured), sold at a Christie’s auction in Geneva, Switzerland, last week for a world-record public sale price of £158 million.
Described as ‘one of the greatest jewelery collections’, the first batch of necklaces, bracelets, earrings and tiaras sold for around £124 million
Ms Horten died last year at the age of 81, shortly after opening a museum under her name in Vienna.
She derived her estimated fortune of £2.3 billion from her late husband, Mr Horten, who profited from the destruction of Jewish businesses in the 1930s and once announced that a department store came under ‘Aryan ownership’ after his takeover.
According to historian David De Jong, he first bought a Jewish department store from his employer in 1933.
And by 1937, Mr. Horten was a member of the Nazi Party, having built up a portfolio of ex-Jewish companies that he had coerced into buying from himself or the Nazi authorities for “65 percent” of their value.
Yonathan Arfi, president of the representative council of French Jewish institutions, said: “The sale is indecent in two ways.
Not only did the funds that enabled the purchase of this jewelry come in part from Nazi Germany’s Ayranization of Jewish property, this sale is also intended to fund a foundation whose mission is to preserve the name of a former Nazi for posterity to secure.’
Heidi Horten (left) who married German businessman and Nazi Helmut Horten (right) in 1966 when she was 19 and he was 50
She derived her estimated fortune of £2.3 billion from her late husband, Mr Horten, who profited from the destruction of Jewish businesses in the 1930s.
All jewelry was purchased with money her husband Helmut earned on the backs of Jews in the Holocaust
And by 1937, Mr. Horten was a member of the Nazi Party, having built up a portfolio of ex-Jewish companies bought for ’65 percent’ of their value
The auction house defended the sale of some 700 pieces of jewelry, saying it could not ‘erase’ history
Tens of thousands of Jewish-owned stores became “Aryanized”—meaning their values suppressed by boycotts, propaganda attacks, and other pressures from the authorities in the 1930s.
Many Jewish people received no compensation and some received ‘hidden payments’, while most buyers – possibly like Mr Horten – ‘benefited’ from persecution measures.
The controversy comes just months after a French court ordered Christie’s London to return The Penitent Magdalene by Dutch artist Adriaen van der Werff to the heirs of its Jewish owner after the 18th-century work was discovered to have been looted by Nazis.
The painting originally belonged to Lionel Hauser, an art collector and Jewish banker in Paris who reported in 1945 that the Nazis had seized his entire art collection – including The Penitent Magdalene – from his home in Paris three years earlier.
The French government later included photos of the stolen artwork in its official catalog of items looted by Nazis in the country.
But when Christie’s sold the painting for £92,000 in 2005, the sale contained no provenance history citing Hauser’s previous ownership.
When the painting’s current owner, an anonymous British collector, approached Christie’s in 2017 to resell the painting, investigators learned it once belonged to Mr. Hauser.
Christie’s legal team then contacted his heirs and offered to split the proceeds of the sale between the heirs and the current owner.
However, it refused to transfer the painting to Mr Hauser’s heirs because there is a statute of limitations under UK law since more than six years have passed since the sale of the painting in 2005.
Hauser’s family sued Christie’s London in Paris civil court last June, and a judge sided with them in February.
Christie’s must now pay the family a £440 daily fine for any delays in identifying the painting’s current owner and location, as well as £8,800 in court costs.