My stance is totally apolitical and neutral.

GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — A Lebanese businessman will donate Adolf Hitler’s top hat and other objects linked to the Nazi leader to an Israeli foundation in order to keep the items out of the hands of neo-fascists.

Abdallah Chatila, who has made a fortune from diamonds and real estate in Geneva, told the Matin Dimanche weekly that he had “wished to buy these objects so that they could not be used for the purpose of neo-Nazi propaganda.

“My stance is totally apolitical and neutral,” he added.

The collapsible top hat believed to have belonged to Nazi leader Adolph Hitler sold for 50,000 euros ($55,300) at a controversial Munich-based auction on Wednesday.

Chatila scooped up as many other Hitler-related articles as he could at the auction and has donated them to the Keren Hayesod association, an Israeli fundraising group.

The head of the European Jewish Association, rabbi Menachem Margolin, said he was “bowled over” by the gestures from the businessman.

“In a cynical world, a real act of kindness, of generosity and solidarity,” he said in a statement Sunday.

Margolin added that Chatila had accepted an invitation to join a visit by 100 European parliamentarians to the site of the World War II Auschwitz death camp in January to receive an award.