Thieves steal Holocaust victims' shoes at Polish Majdanek museum

[webfact]

Thieves steal Holocaust victims' shoes at Polish museum

(BBC) Eight shoes belonging to Jewish Holocaust victims have been stolen from a former concentration camp in Poland.

The theft took place at the Majdanek museum near Lublin between 18 and 20 November, police said.

Previous items stolen from the museum include victim's ashes and a cap from a prisoner.

More than 78,000 people were sent to the gas chambers at Majdanek which was built by the Nazis in 1941 and abandoned in 1944.

The shoes were reported missing after a museum employee realised that a wire net over a display of 56,000 shoes had been cut.

A spokesman from the museum said that the exhibit aimed to show visitors the scale of the Nazis' crime.

He said that the theft was "a great loss to the museum" as these objects have "huge historical value."

Full story: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30202861


-- BBC 2014-11-26

[ABCer]

I hope one day the thieves will be given a chance to wear these shoes.

[tracker1]

Disgusting and Disrespectful. But 8 shoes from 56,000

[Norvid]

Maybe they are building up an exposition in New York?

[yellow1red1]

those nut jobs who went to Cambodia after stealing body parts at Siriaj, must have made their way to Poland.

[Rimmer]

A troll post has been removed, yes this is news.

Majdanek was also a collection centre for shoes taken from holocaust victims in the Lublin area.

[Suradit69]

those nut jobs who went to Cambodia after stealing body parts at Siriaj, must have made their way to Poland.

Because there are only two brain dead criminals in the world??

I opened this thread just to see if it would be possible for anyone to somehow tie this event to Thailand. Congratulations. Apparently anything bad that happens anywhere in the world is only separated by one or two degrees from Thailand. At least no one has attempted to blame this (so far) on any Thai person.

As to the O/P, there must be some rather weird collector somewhere in the world who was willing to pay for the shoes. What else could be done with them? Attempting to sell them openly would be difficult to impossible. Putting them on display in your home would be beyond creepy. Strange indeed.

[RustBucket]

Maybe the person they were stolen for told the thieves he wanted to build his own personal 8 foot long holocaust display.

[blacksuitdandruff]

There are those who believe in freeing shoes from prisons one pair at a time.

[englishoak]

How did they know it was 8 ? did they count all 56,000 again and come up with 55992 ?

Edited November 26, 2014 by englishoak

[Bwanatickey]

A load of old Cobblers.

[Morch]

those nut jobs who went to Cambodia after stealing body parts at Siriaj, must have made their way to Poland.

Because there are only two brain dead criminals in the world??

I opened this thread just to see if it would be possible for anyone to somehow tie this event to Thailand. Congratulations. Apparently anything bad that happens anywhere in the world is only separated by one or two degrees from Thailand. At least no one has attempted to blame this (so far) on any Thai person.

As to the O/P, there must be some rather weird collector somewhere in the world who was willing to pay for the shoes. What else could be done with them? Attempting to sell them openly would be difficult to impossible. Putting them on display in your home would be beyond creepy. Strange indeed.

There's trade in Holocaust and Nazi memorabilia on some corners of the internet, not really that hard to find. Going to parts of the net not covered by Google, this sort of thing comes up sometimes (wouldn't say often, but still). As the article quoted in the OP mentioned, part of the Dachau concentration camp was stolen recently as well. Yes, probably goes to private collectors.

[Morch]

How did they know it was 8 ? did they count all 56,000 again and come up with 55992 ?

Like most museums, exhibits are marked and numbered. The display is actually divided by wire mesh into smaller compartments so they probably had to count just the shoes in the relevant one, not all of them.