BUENOS AIRES POLICE SAY THEY’VE FOUND CACHE OF NAZI ARTIFACTS.
Buenos Aires find could have link to top Nazis
BUENOS AIRES • In a hidden room in a house near Argentina’s capital, police believe they have found the biggest collection of Nazi artifacts in the country’s history, including a bust relief of Adolf Hitler and magnifying glasses inside elegant boxes with swastikas.
Some 75 objects were found in a collector’s home in Beccar, a suburb of Buenos Aires, and authorities say they suspect they are originals that belonged to highranking Nazis in Germany during the Second World War.
“Our first investigations indicate that these are original pieces,” said Argentine Security Minister Patricia Bullrich, adding 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. There are photos of him with the objects.”
Among the 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 photo 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The photograph was not released to the public, but was shown to The Associated Press on the condition that it not be published.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 with 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 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,” said Roncaglia.
Police are trying to determine how the artifacts entered Argentina. The main hypothesis among investigators and member of Argentina’s Jewish community is that they were brought to Argentina by a high-ranking Nazi or Nazis after the Second World War, when the country became a refuge for fleeing war criminals, including Josef Mengele and Holocaust mastermind Adolf Eichmann.