Hundreds of jewels of the Austrian billionaire Heidi Horten are offered in May by Christie’s, but organizations are calling for the suspension of the auction because of her husband’s links with the Nazis.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, which specializes in tracking down former Nazis, opposes the sale although it should benefit charity because Helmut Horten built his fortune in Germany under the Nazi Party of which he was a member for a time.
Millions originally cloudy
One of the centerpieces of this collection of 700 jewels which was in the possession of Helmut Horten (1941-2022) is a Cartier ring set with a “pigeon’s blood” ruby of 25.59 carats, estimated between 15 and 20 million million, said Rahul Kadakia, international director for jewelery at Christie’s, during the presentation on Monday.
“We also have the ”Briolette d’Inde””, a 90.36 carat diamond “of color D, the whitest, estimated between 10 and 15 million dollars”, attached to a necklace formed by a myriad small white diamonds, he added. This briolette diamond had been acquired by Cartier in 1909, before being sold to banker George Blumenthal in 1911 and then to jeweler Harry Winston in 1946, then allegedly sold to a maharaja a year later. Subsequently bought several times, it was acquired by Helmut Horten in 1971.
Spaced sales
This “utterly extraordinary” collection is valued at between $150 and $200 million, according to Rahul Kadakia. “The last time Christie’s held an auction of this level was in 2011, when we sold the Elizabeth Taylor collection, which brought in around $145 million in two days, and there had 400 jewels,” he argued. This time, “in order not to have so many jewels on the market at the same time”, sales have been spaced out.
Thus, 300 lots are offered online from May 3 to 15, less than 100 will be dispersed in theaters on May 10, 150 on May 12, and around 300 others online in November. According to the Forbes ranking, the fortune of Helmut Horten, who died in June 2022, amounted to 2.9 billion dollars.
Flight of the Jewish owners in 1936
But the origin of her husband’s fortune, who owned one of Germany’s largest department store chains, has drawn criticism. In 1936, three years after Adolf Hitler became German chancellor, he took over the Alsberg textile company after its Jewish owners fled, before taking over several other Jewish-owned stores before the war.
He was later accused of profiting from the “Aryanization” of Jewish property (spoliation measures aimed at transferring ownership of businesses owned by people of Jewish descent). In recent days, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the American Jewish Committee called on Christie’s to suspend the sale.
“We are convinced that the sale will do good”
“Do not reward those whose families were able to enrich themselves thanks to desperate Jews targeted and threatened by the Nazis,” pleaded in a press release Rabbi Abraham Cooper, one of the leaders of the Simon Wiesenthal center. But the auction house agreed to hold it because “all proceeds from the sale will go to charity, (…) and Christie’s is separately making a significant donation to Holocaust research and education.” “, explained Rahul Kadakia. “So we’re confident that ultimately the proceeds from the sale will do good.”
For the American Jewish Committee, this is not enough: the sale must be suspended “until a serious effort is made to determine how much of this wealth came from Nazi victims”, with a view to returning it to survivors and to educational programs.