Huge crowds attending pre-Christmas auctions of confiscated Jewish goods in the leading German cities, paid fantastically high prices after spirited bidding for each article, it is reported by Berlin correspondents of the Stockholm newspapers.
Although new houses furnishings when available cost only a third of the price paid for many of the articles at the auctions, the reports state, the scarcity of consumer goods and the German people’s fear of imminent inflation produced the rush to buy these Jewish-owned furnishings. Ordinary couches brought 1,000 marks, nominally $400; upholstered armchairs were sold for 400 marks; 75 marks were paid for ordinary cotton bedsheets.
The government authorities announced that the money realized on the goods, the owners of which have been deported to Poland, would be used to “pay the costs of evacuating Jews.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
