An auction of Communist-era relics discovered in the basement of a government building in Hungary raised close to 12 million forints (58,000 dollars) for victims of a recent toxic waste spill, the state news agency MTI reported on Tuesday.
Under the hammer the previous evening were just over a hundred busts and portraits of the Communist elite, socialist-realist paintings and other propaganda pieces, DPA reported.
A 1957 painting by the Iraqi artist Kadhim Haydar titled "He told us everything the way it happened" fetched the highest price of 1.6 million forints. The painting depicts a Picasso-esque giant.
The horde was discovered gathering dust in the basement of the Justice Ministry building earlier this year during a post-election spring clean by the new conservative government.
The proceeds of the auction are to be used to help those affected by the huge industrial effluent spill from an aluminium plant in the western city of Ajka on October 4.
Ten people were killed and hundreds left homeless in the country's worst environmental disaster.
...