Shady business

‘It’s capitalism at its worst': Nazi gas chamber valve and slave collar among items hawked at Florida auction

Klan hoods, a slave collar, a gas valve from a Nazi death chamber. These are items from atrocities that most would like to leave in the annals of history.

But auctioneers in South Florida have dug up items from some of the worst that humanity can offer and are selling them for profit, the Sun Sentinel reports. Reporter Michael Mayo recounts walking through a warehouse full of concentration camp badges, Nazi flags, discriminatory signs from the Jim Crow South and letters written by serial killers, all part of the “The Ultimate Evil Auction.”

“From a moral standpoint, I didn’t know whether it was right or wrong,” Scott Grasso, president of J. Sugarman Auction Corp, told Mayo. “But these items have a historical significance to them, and you can’t change the course of history. …So far, there’s been more interest than objection to it.”