A cache of Nazi paraphernalia recently discovered during a police raid in Argentina may be fake, according to a prominent auctioneer specializing in Nazi memorabilia.
Bill Panagopulos, who runs Alexander Historical Auctions, an auction house, the discoveries are “carnival-quality garbage” and “a bunch of ersatz liverwurst,” the New York Post reported. Panagopolos based his comments on images of the finds.
Argentine authorities discovered the large cache of putative Nazi paraphernalia in Buenos Aires this month, in what was seen as a physical reminder of the thousands of former Nazis who fled to the South American country following the end of the Second World War.
The objects, including busts of Hitler, tools used for judging the ethnic characteristics of people according to National Socialist racial doctrine and devices used in medical experimentation, were found behind a false wall of a house during a raid by the Cultural Crimes section of the Federal Police. Other finds included statues of the German imperial eagle and multiple pieces bearing swastikas. Such items are prohibited under Argentine law.
Argentine Security Minister Patricia Bullrich said following discovery of the cache that she was “shocked” by the find, adding that she would push for the it to be donated to the local Holocaust museum.
“The main hypothesis is that someone who was part of the regime entered into Argentina because the amount of objects of the same style is difficult to find in private collections that can have one or two objects, but not of this amount and of this quality,” according to one investigator.
Around five thousand former Nazis who escaped Europe made their way to Argentina with the aid of President Juan Peron, whose government established escape routes through Spain and Italy. The most famous of these was Adolf Eichmann, one of the primary organizers of the Holocaust. He was kidnapped by Israeli intelligence in 1960 and brought to the Jewish state, where he was subsequently tried and executed.