by AP and Israel Hayom Staff
Historic find "could offer irrefutable proof of the presence of top leaders who escaped from Nazi Germany," says Jewish community leader.
Police with a Nazi statue at
Interpol headquarters in Buenos Aires over the weekend
|Photo credit: AP
 |
Police believe they have found the biggest
collection of Nazi artifacts in Argentina's history in a hidden room in a
house near the country's capital.
The haul includes a bust relief of Adolf
Hitler, magnifying glasses inside elegant boxes with swastikas, and even
a macabre medical device used to measure head size.
Some 75 objects were found in a collector's
home in Beccar, a suburb north of Buenos Aires, and authorities say they
suspect they are originals that belonged to high-ranking Nazis who were
in Germany during World War II.
"Our first investigations indicate that these
are original pieces," Argentine Security Minister Patricia Bullrich told
The Associated Press on Monday, saying that some pieces were
accompanied by old photographs.
"This is a way to commercialize them, showing
that they were used by the horror, by the Fuhrer [Hitler]. There are
photos of him with the objects."
Among the disturbing items were toys that
Bullrich said would have been used to indoctrinate children, a large
statue of the Nazi eagle above a swastika, a Nazi hourglass and a box of
harmonicas.
Police say one of the most compelling pieces
of evidence of the historical importance of the find is a photographic
negative of Hitler holding a magnifying glass similar to those found in
the boxes.
"We have turned to historians and they've told
us it is the original magnifying glass [that Hitler was using]," said
Nestor Roncaglia, head of Argentina's federal police. "We are reaching
out to international experts to deepen [the investigation]."
The photograph was not released to the public, but was shown to The Associated Press on the condition that it not be published.
The investigation that culminated in the
discovery of the collection began when authorities found artworks of
illicit origin in a gallery in north Buenos Aires.
Agents with the international police force
Interpol began following the collector and, after obtaining a judicial
order, raided the house on June 8. A large bookshelf caught their
attention, and behind it agents found a hidden passageway to a room
filled with Nazi imagery.
Authorities did not identify the collector, who remains free but is under investigation by a federal judge.
"There are no precedents for a find like this.
Pieces are stolen or are imitations. But this is original and we have
to get to the bottom of it," Roncaglia said.
Police are trying to determine how the artifacts entered Argentina.
The main hypothesis among investigators and
members of Argentina's Jewish community is that they were brought to
Argentina by a high-ranking Nazi or Nazis after World War II, when the
South American country became a refuge for fleeing war criminals,
including some of the best known.
Josef Mengele, the notorious doctor who
conducted horrendous experiments on Jewish prisoners, fled to Argentina
and lived in Buenos Aires for a decade. He moved to Paraguay after
Mossad agents captured Holocaust mastermind Adolf Eichmann, who was also
living in Buenos Aires. Mengele died in Brazil in 1979 while swimming
at a beach in the town of Bertioga.
While police in Argentina did not name any
high-ranking Nazis to whom the objects might have originally belonged,
Bullrich noted there were medical devices.
"There are objects to measure heads -- that was the logic of the Aryan race," she said.
Ariel Cohen Sabban, president of the DAIA, a
political umbrella for Argentina's Jewish institutes, called the find
"unheard of" in Argentina.
"Finding 75 original pieces is historic and could offer
irrefutable proof of the presence of top leaders who escaped from Nazi
Germany," Cohen told AP.
AP and Israel Hayom Staff
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=43241
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