A collection of 75 objects described as “Nazi relics” has been found behind bookshelves in a secret room in the suburban Buenos Aires home of a collector.
A bust of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, a statue of a Nazi eagle gripping a swastika on a stone pedestal, pistols, swords, magnifying glasses, a collection of harmonicas and other items were confiscated by police in Beccar, a northern suburb of the Argentine capital.
Authorities suspect they are originals that belonged to high-ranking Nazis in Germany. They are trying to determine how the objects came into Argentina and came to be hidden in the secret room.
After completion of the investigation, the relics are to be taken into the collection of the Holocaust museum in Buenos Aires,Argentinian Security Minister Patricia Bullrich said Monday.
Investigators believe the items are originals from the time when the Nazi party was in power in Germany. They said an antiques trader has been charged with smuggling works of art in connection with the find.
“The objects are irrefutable proof that high-ranking Nazis took refuge in Argentina,” said Ariel Cohen Sabban, president of the DAIA (Delegacion de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas), an umbrella organization of Argentina’s Jewish community.
Among the high-ranking Nazis who fled to Argentina after the war were Josef Mengele, a notorious Nazi physician who performed deadly experiments on prisoners at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Mengele lived in Buenos Aires for a decade before his death in 1979.
Adolf Eichmann, one of the main organizers of the Holocaust, also lived in Buenos Aires until he was captured in 1960 by Israeli intelligence agents. — dpa
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