Horten Auction: Christie's to Donate to Jewish Organizations

Die Presse, May 23, 2023

German original: https://www.diepresse.com/6291175/horten-auktion-christies-will-an-juedische-organisationen-spenden

The auction house is said to have offered large sums of money to Jewish organizations following massive criticism of Heidi Horten's jewelry auction.

There is no end to the criticism surrounding the auction of the jewelry of Austrian billionaire Heidi Horten, who died in 2022, which yielded an interim result of 186 million euros. According to the "Kronen Zeitung" (Tuesday edition), the auction house Christie's, which came under fire because of the controversy surrounding the Nazi past of the German entrepreneur Helmut Horten, husband of Heidi Horten, has made high money offers, citing the "Jerusalem Post".

Christie's confirmed on Tuesday on request that these offers have gone to organizations that contribute significantly to research and education on the Holocaust. However, as the Jerusalem Post reported, the Israeli Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem and another Jewish organization have rejected the offers. As before, the auction of the pieces from Horten's jewelry collection is sparking fierce criticism. "Christie's must postpone this auction until full clarification is obtained on this connection to Nazi-era acquisitions," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, deputy director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, for example.

Helmut Horten was a member of the NSDAP

According to a historian's report published in January 2022 and commissioned by the Horten Foundation, Heidi Horten's husband Helmut was a member of the NSDAP for a long time. In 1936, three years after the Nazis seized power, he took over the Alsberg textile department store in Duisburg at the age of 27 after its Jewish owners had fled. He later took over other stores that had previously been owned by Jewish owners. He was therefore accused of having profited from the "Aryanization" of Jewish businesses during the Nazi era.

According to the historian's report by Peter Hoeres, Horten reached an agreement on reparations with the Jewish previous owners of the Alsberg textile department store after the end of the war. A department store in Wattenscheid was returned to the original owners. In the case of a business takeover in Königsberg, on the other hand, according to the analysis, Horten probably resisted reparations under civil law because he knew that there were no enforceable legal claims against him.

The opinion states that a "certain ambivalence" has emerged. Horten have sought out-of-court settlements. "The settlements reached can be considered fair and beneficial to the former previous owners, although in the case of Duisburg the financial means could only be a weak consolation for the injustice suffered."

According to the expert report, Horten's thinking had not been "determined by Nazi ideology," yet he had enjoyed a "certain esteem from the Nazi authorities." His company in Duisburg was used as a distribution company, and Horten had been efficient at it. According to a statement from the denazification proceedings, Horten was briefly imprisoned in 1944. He was expelled from the NSDAP that year. The reason, according to the report, was quarrels with Nazi officials and suspicion of improper distribution of goods. "Overall, it is evident in all cases that business always came before politics. If the political framework accommodated his business activities, Horten apparently did not question them either and used his advantage," the report said.

(APA)