Memory should not be a subject of commercial trade
Statement of the Katyn Museum regarding the auction of memorabilia of the victims of German terror
Last weekend (15–16 November 2025), public opinion in Poland was stirred by reports of a planned auction by the German auction house Auktionshaus Felzmann of memorabilia connected with victims of German terror.
Among the documents listed for sale in the auction — subsequently withdrawn following the intervention of the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs — were, inter alia:
- a telegram sent by Captain Henryk Umiński from the Starobilsk camp to his family on 3 April 1940 (a copy was donated to the Katyn Museum’s collection in the 1990s by the editorial team of the weekly magazine „Zorza”).
- correspondence from Waleria Leszczyńska to the German Red Cross (Deutsches Rotes Kreuz, DRK) concerning her husband, Jan Leszczyński, interned in Lithuania (15 October 1941), together with an envelope bearing the address of Jan Leszczyński Aleksandrowicz and a reply from the DRK dated 23 January 1942, indicating Moscow post office box addresses to which correspondence regarding missing prisoners of war from the Kozelsk and Starobilsk camps should be sent. Jan Leszczyński himself was not a victim of the Katyń massacre; he left the USSR with the Polish Army under the command of General Władysław Anders.
Memory — preserved for decades by Katyń families, often despite the risk of repression by the communist security services — should not be treated as a commodity for trade. Yet such situations are becoming increasingly frequent, particularly when valuable mementoes of murdered relatives are inherited by younger generations or more distant family members.
The Katyń Museum actively seeks to acquire and preserve these invaluable mementoes, documents and photographs for its collection.
Mindful of the enduring value of remembrance of the victims of Second World War repression, we appeal for memorabilia connected with the victims of the Katyn massacre to be entrusted to the Katyn Museum, where they will receive professional conservation care. Preserved in optimal conditions, they will remain accessible to both visitors and researchers of Katyn-related history — as testimony to who the victims were, to their families, and as a lasting bearer of their memory.
See also the address delivered by Dr Izabella Sariusz-Skąpska, President of the Federation of Katyn Families, during the commemoration of the 86th anniversary of the Katyn Massacre on 12 April 2025, inaugurating the public campaign “Memory Is Not for Sale”.
