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Nick Champion's avatar

Good article Guy. I have masses of WW2 items in my collection and have been to fairs and sales for years. I remember wandering around the old Beltring and seeing concentration camp pyjamas for sale, gas chamber crematoria stretchers, items purportedly made of human skin etc. It was vile and I complained to the organisers who shrugged it off. I walked into the RAMC museum at Keogh and the desk that the visitors book sat on was a concentration camp commandant's desk - I recoiled. Now I may be woke or timid and shying away from history but these things ARE important and should NOT be airbrushed or invisible - but for anyone to make a profit (killing) from them now is criminal in my view. They should be in museums along with the mountains of dentures, spectacles and shoes that once belonged to children and adults who wanted to live, who had hopes and didn't deserve to die in the terrible anguish filled hours or minutes it took them to die. If I had the money I'd buy that watch - and grind it under the heel of my boot. We don't need personal ephemera of him to remember - or learn - his watch is just a goulish artefact that the buyer will pleasure themselves to no doubt. Sorry, but this boils my proverbial.

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Wilson Reid's avatar

Hi Walt. When I was in my mid teens, studying for exams at school, I became somewhat "fascinated" by the Nazis as I could not understand how it was possible for a country to surrender itself to such an evil ideology, to commit such attrocities as they did. I didn't admire but wanted to know "Why?". So, loads of reading of books about the party, the SS, the Holocaust, and seminars at the University of Glasgow for 6th year students studying history. My Mother was a touch concerned, but given that I was also a leading light in my local Labour Party and Socialist youth groups (and active in the Anti-Nazi League), didn't think I was in danger of indoctrination. Neither did my teachers. But these items are desperately inappropriate for private ownership, and private individuals wanting to own them deeply suspect. What would you do with the watch? Wear it on special occasions? I'm off to the local golf club Burns Supper. I'd better wear my good watch. No, there are Hitler lovers out there who will achieve all sorts of thrills from his, or any other Nazi's personal belongings. Museum ownership? Yes. Morbid monster loving millionaire ownership? No. Hope you are well and coping with the heat. Cheers, Wil.

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