Did Nazis make lampshades from Jewish prisoners’ “skin”?

LONDON - An old lampshade, which was discovered to have been made out of “human skin”, has left its shocked owner wondering if it had been made by the Nazis using Jewish prisoners’ skin.

The weird, parchment-like fabric stretched over eight panels, is so thin it is almost translucent, and on closer inspection the yellowy material is marked with strange pores, filaments and patterns.It weighs about a pound. But the more time you spend with it the more it begins to weigh heavy on your mind. It really does look strange,” the Sun quoted the lamp’s owner Mark Jacobson as saying.

“We’ve all heard the stories of the Nazi human lampshades,” he said.

There have been many stories of Nazi lamps being made from the skin of Jewish prisoners in concentration camps during the Second World War, but there have so far not been any proof.

Jacobson decided to get his lamp tested, and he sent a small piece away for DNA testing at Bode Technology near Washington DC, and it came back as “100 percent human”.

Antique experts have also confirmed the frame is a European design between 60 and 80 years old.

“I got it tested and it turned out to be real. That was quite a shock. You can’t tell from the DNA testing exactly what happened.

“You can’t tell what sort of person it is or whether it’s from a concentration camp. But we know it is human. It is a person. There is no doubt that it is human.

“And the lampshade is definitely a European model. I’ve had curators look at it from famous auction houses who all put it as a central European design from the correct time period.

“It becomes a horrifying thing - the idea that you could take somebody’s skin and make a household object out of it is just so appalling,” he stated. (ANI)