OMG !!!!! My first "Religion" coin experience .......
Harlequin
Posts: 112 ✭✭✭
Recently, I sold some German WWII silver coins on eBay that I acquired from a small collection of 125 world coins that I purchased. All 125 coins in the collection were Uncirculated.
As is, I received a message from someone who saw the auctions and messaged me the following (ver batim) :
"You are selling coins that were used to finance the murder of Jewish clerics, citizens, and hasidic beliefs! We are religious people and proud of our heritage and we do not promote this action as it goes against our Judaic beliefs !!! Please consider ... Thank you sir"
As is, I had no idea why he was so adamant about this? I know the history of the Jewish people in German death camps but do you think this is something that should have come up in a coin sale as I was not promoting the hate of Jewish people and was only selling my coins. What do you think .......
🇺🇸 Harlequin Numismatic
harlequinnumismatic@gmail.com
Comments
Religious zealots of any kind (Christian, Jewish, Islamic, etc.) are the bane of the earth.
Ignore and block.
Block and move on. Not your fault in any way shape or form.
NFL: Buffalo Bills & Green Bay Packers
Same can be said for extreme atheists of all kinds (Ex: Stalin, Lenin, Mao and on and on).
NFL: Buffalo Bills & Green Bay Packers
The sale of Nazi memorabilia is a "hot topic". There are many people, not just Jews, who object to the commoditization (and potential glorification) of Nazi relics and believe that selling them should be restricted or banned outright. There is a kernel of truth to their concerns; some of the people who sell such things share at least an admiration for some aspects of Nazism, while a tiny minority of sellers are openly pandering to the neo-Nazi market. But most sellers don't care about the politics, or even the history - they're just selling "obsolete world coins", just like any other obsolete world coins.
It's not like your selling them is in any way going to fund Nazi Germany. I'm assuming both you and the complainant are in the United States. Most of the Nazi coins in the United States were brought home as war trophies by soldiers who fought against the Nazis in WWII, or who were stationed there in the immediate aftermath of the war. So buying and selling Nazi coins is more likely to benefit veterans and their families, rather than go towards funding Nazis.
I also wouldn't call the Holocaust "religious persecution", as such. Unlike most previous persecutions of Jews in the past 2000 years or so, whether by Christian, Muslim or Atheist authorities, the Nazis didn't care if the Jews they were hunting were actually believers in Judaism or not; if a pious Jew recanted and converted from Judaism, that didn't make the Nazis stop persecuting them. Because the twisted ideology behind the Nazi hatred of Jews was based on ethnicity and genetics, not religion. Indeed Nazi propaganda clearly shows that the kinds of Jews they hated the most, were the Jews who tried to pretend they weren't Jewish by renouncing their distinctive religious practices and behaving like normal Germans. Which is why everyone deemed by the Nazis to be Jewish was forced to wear the Yellow Star.
Nevertheless, in an effort to appease the readily offended, the sale of such items is sometimes restricted or controlled. Different countries handle it different ways. France (perhaps understandably) bans it entirely. In Germany itself, selling Nazi coins is legal so long as the swastika is not openly displayed (so they're supposed to put them swastika-side-down in display cabinets). Online sales has a tendency to cross borders, however, and people in one country may not be aware of the rules against such things in other countries.
Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations"
Apparently I have been awarded one DPOTD.
Sapyx, I think that was wonderfully articulated and very logical on all points. I was going to add my two cents, but you pretty much covered all that I would have said.
I'm BACK!!! Used to be Billet7 on the old forum.
It may not be completely rational, but when a person has had six million of his people exterminated, you can forgive him for being a little sensitive about the subject.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
I understand and, in part, condone this person’s desire to eliminate a horrific thing…no one wants to be reminded of evil (well, most don’t.) There are other things going on too, I think.
It seems like there’s a very strong belief from the person authoring the message that it’s “us against them.” It’s a very hard mentality to change, and it is a very protective and natural instinct, but it also creates discord among humankind. Jewish people aren’t meant to be a separate people. Neither should any subset group of society. We are all human and the differences among us shouldn’t divide us, but bring us to a greater understanding of the richness among us.
The Nazi extermination is an atrocity that should never have happened and should never happen again. It’s counted among the most horrific things to have ever occurred. There are other monsters that have done even worse, however, that we talk very little about. The figure attached to Stalin’s murderous rampage is in the 20 million range…much more carnage numbers wise, which too is unforgivable. Regardless, modern society tends to focus a lot on the persecution of the Jewish people. Why? Possibly because it was so specific and so targeted in addition to the murderous act. There’s very specific iconography associated with it (that was largely stolen from the Hindu people) and the Nazi branding was very visible (hence the subject of this thread.)
The whole act of Hitler and the extermination of minority people (it wasn’t just limited to Jews, there were many other minority groups that were targeted, but the majority of them were certainly Jewish.) were precipitated because of at least three conditions. 1. Jews controlled much of the economy in Germany. 2. Jews were not Germanic. 3. Hitler and many other Germans had a negative view on Jewish people.
Some of it was economy, some of it was racism. All of it was about taking back “our” country from people who didn’t “deserve it”…and then it turned into eliminating the world of those same people. Hitler was promising to give back Germany to the German people and it worked, they gave him the power to do just about anything…absolute power corrupts absolutely.
It’s crazy to think about, but this is simply an “us versus them” mentality. If we live in this way we can’t ever be at peace as a society.
I don’t have a single German coin, nor do I want one. I’m as horrified as anyone by what took place. I think there are at least two things that can help us remember what happened and how to avoid it in the future…this is true with all historic differences that have caused harm.
Education. We cannot forget. Removing it from our history (and from our historic coinage) is about forgetting the past. I do appreciate and understand wanting to rid our environment of these reminders, but I think it’s important that we don’t. Changing or erasing the past almost guarantees that we’ll repeat it, just under different circumstances and with different people.
Embrace the philosophy that we aren’t separate, that we don’t belong to groups and that those groups aren’t against each other. “Us against them” mentality is damaging whether you’ve committed atrocities or whether you’ve been the victim of them. Harboring anger and resentment and pride can only destroy, it cannot create. This is true for anyone, in any position and no matter how justified the anger.
Just a few thoughts.
I'm BACK!!! Used to be Billet7 on the old forum.
Yes, the Germans were barbaric in WWII. So were the Japanese. The Russians and Chinese were barbaric at times. As were the Spanish conquistadors. And the even American settlers. Humans can be horrible people.
But someone using THEIR religious beliefs to force their will upon ME isn't happening. The coins themselves are innocent. They are merely artifacts of another time. And transacting in said coins doesn't make me an accomplice to the barbarity of the people who made them.
Many atheists have God complexes (not just people who believe in God can be annoying) and they are no better and can be just as dangerous to deal with. Just ignore that person and block if need be. The world is filled all sorts of types some we can get along with and others not.
NFL: Buffalo Bills & Green Bay Packers
Well, of course. But there was no force used here. All he did was say "Please consider ... Thank you sir".
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
You should have told them that if they win the lot they can slag it at will. Offer them the satisfaction, at a price.
The substantial truth doctrine is an important defense in defamation law that allows individuals to avoid liability if the gist of their statement was true.
I thank ALL OF YOU for your wonderful comments on this topic !!! I have learned so much from your personal insights and opinions as I have never dealt with such a thing in my 30+ years of collecting coins. I believe in freedom of expression so the comments of the post didn't bother me at all but I just thought it was interesting for a topic of discussion and you guys as always provided some noteworthy info ..... Great thread !!!!
🇺🇸 Harlequin Numismatic
harlequinnumismatic@gmail.com
It's madness and associated with the rewriting of history in the last few years.
I am amused by, ""You are selling coins that were used to finance the murder of Jewish clerics, citizens, and hasidic beliefs! We are religious people and proud of our heritage and we do not promote this action as it goes against our Judaic beliefs".
Apparently the author thinks one can't oppose the murder of innocents unless they agree to kowtow to other peoples' beliefs.
Where would it end? Is any coin that might have been used for nefarious or evil purposes to confined to the garbage pile.
Rod Serling said it best;
"There is an answer to the doctor's question. All the Dachaus must remain standing. The Dachaus, the Belsens, the Buchenwalds, the Auschwitzes; all of them. They must remain standing because they are a monument to a moment in time when some men decided to turn the Earth into a graveyard. Into it they shoveled all of their reason, their logic, their knowledge, but worst of all, their conscience. And the moment we forget this, the moment we cease to be haunted by its remembrance, then we become the gravediggers. Something to dwell on and to remember, not only in the Twilight Zone but wherever men walk God's Earth."
I would simply ignore it.