Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Orthodox Jew Buys Mengele’s Diaries at Auction

An American Orthodox Jewish man reportedly bought the diaries of notorious Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele in a controversial auction.

The buyer, who was not named, is said to be a collector of World War II-era artifacts.

News outlets variously reported the value of the sale at between $245,000 and $300,000. The sale was run by the Connecticut-based Alexander Historical Auctions, which did not identify the seller.

Mengele, who died in 1979, was notorious for conducting ghastly experiments on prisoners at Auschwitz. His notebooks were written after the war in South America, where he fled to escape justice.

The sale of the diaries was strongly criticized by some Holocaust historians and some in the Jewish community.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.