Argentine police have seized a collection of original Nazi artefacts concealed in a Buenos Aires house, including busts of World War II German dictator, Adolf Hitler, and medical instruments used for racial identification.
Argentine police and Interpol raided the house of an art collector north of capital Buenos Aires as part of operation 'Near East,' happening upon the collection behind a bookshelf and down a secret passageway.
No arrests were made and police gave no indication of who had owned the objects.
Among the 75 objects were swastikas and other Nazi symbols, including busts and pictures of Adolf Hitler, puzzle games for children, daggers and medical instruments that were used to measure a person's anatomical fit to the standards of the so-called "Aryan race."
Officials and Jewish groups said it was a major historical find in a country where numerous senior Nazis fled after World War II.
Speaking at a news conference in Buenos Aires on Monday, Minister of National Security, Patricia Bullrich, said the artefacts would be donated to the Holocaust Museum in Buenos Aires, serving to recuperate and maintain present the memory of the Holocaust whilst removing them from circulation among sales and collectors.
Some of the 75 artefacts found behind a bookshelf bear the Nazi symbol. Source: AAP
The police also seized 3,000-year-old animal mummies from Ancient Egypt, they said were likely to be sold on the black market.
After the fall of Nazi Germany at the end of World War II, many Nazi party members and high-ranking officials such as Nazi officer Adolf Eichmann, and Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, the so-called "Angel of Death," fled to Latin American countries, seeking to escape justice.
Historians have been enlisted to help to determine how and when the artefacts entered the country.
A Nazi statue among the artefacts found in a hidden room in a house near Argentina's capital. Source: AAP
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