Jewish artifacts taken by Nazis in Holocaust seized at New York auction house, feds say

Jewish artifacts illegally confiscated by Nazis during World War II and thought to be lost forever have been found and seized by the Department of Homeland Security Investigations, according to the Department of Justice.

Seventeen artifacts – including funeral scrolls, communal records and other manuscripts from Jewish communities in Romania, Hungary, Ukraine and Slovakia – were found at a Brooklyn auction house selling them, according to a statement from the Department of Justice.

The scrolls and manuscripts date from the mid-19th century to World War II and were taken from Jewish communities during the Holocaust. Three additional artifacts are thought to be in Israel and upstate New York, according to the statement.

“The Scrolls and Manuscripts that were illegally confiscated during the Holocaust contain priceless historical information that belongs to the descendants of families that lived and flourished in Jewish communities before the Holocaust," Jacquelyn Kasulis, acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in the statement. "This Office hopes that today’s seizure will contribute to the restoration of pre-Holocaust history in Eastern Europe."

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Law enforcement learned that the auction house was selling manuscripts originating from Jewish communities whose members were "gathered in ghettos, robbed of their property and deported to Nazi death camps, where the majority of them were killed," according to the statement.

After WWII, surviving community members returned "to find their homes ransacked and buildings emptied of property," the statement said. Among the stolen items were the scrolls and manuscripts that contained information about the Jewish communities from as early as 1840 through the Holocaust.

Under the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947, all unclaimed Jewish property was to be returned to survivors' communities, according to an affidavit.

"The Manuscripts and Scrolls were confiscated by individuals who had no right to do so during and after the Holocaust," the statement said.

The auction house, Kestenbaum, has cooperated with authorities, according to the affidavit.

In a statement to USA TODAY, Kestenbaum said it is not the owner of the artifacts but instead "represents a private collector who has exerted much effort over past decades to rescue and preserve Jewish historical documents that would otherwise have been lost."

When concerns over the rights to the artifacts arose, the auction house said it consulted the World Jewish Restitution Organization, a Jerusalem-based nonprofit group dedicated to the restitution of Jewish property, before deciding to withdraw the materials from auction.

"These manuscript-records were saved from a certain destruction both from the horrifying years of Nazi dominance, followed by the decades of Communist repression and institutional neglect," the statement said. "As the political culture and makeup of Eastern European countries changed following the fall of the Berlin Wall, agonizing and complex questions arose as to who has rightful title to heirless Jewish communal property that survived Nazi terror."

Kestenbaum, which has specialized in rare Judaic cultural material for more than 25 years, said it supports and applauds the federal government's efforts to resolve this issue.

The manuscripts contained prayers for the dead, memorial pages, names of deceased community members, society regulations, names of religious leaders and names of community members taken to the Auschwitz concentration camp.

"We are fortunate to be part of the team that is able to return these artifacts to their rightful Jewish communities. ... (We) will continue to bring to justice the individuals and transnational criminal organizations who profit from the trafficking of these cultural treasures," Peter Fitzhugh, a Homeland Security Investigations special agent, said in the statement.

Contact News Now Reporter Christine Fernando at cfernando@usatoday.com or follow her on Twitter at @christinetfern.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Jewish artifacts looted in Holocaust seized at NY auction house: feds