Newshour - Jewellery collection with Nazi links up for auction - BBC Sounds

Helmut Horten was a German billionaire who ran one of the country’s biggest department store chains. But he was also a member of the Nazi Party in the 1930’s, and built his fortune after acquiring Jewish businesses which were forced to sell under duress.

His widow Heidi died last year, and now her vast jewellery collection is going under the hammer at Christie’s auction house in Geneva. The 750 pieces are worth an estimated $150 million. The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights group, has requested that Christie's not go ahead with the sale, and that any philanthropic cause created by money from the sale should not bear the name Horten. Dr Shimon Samuels from the group explained their reasons to Newshour’s Jon Donnison.