Amazon Drops Auschwitz-Themed Christmas Ornaments After Protests
The Amazon e-commerce giant says that it has removed from its site a number of Christmas ornaments featuring images of the Nazi-era Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in Poland, after the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum criticized the sale of such items.
“Selling ‘Christmas ornaments’ with images of Auschwitz does not seem appropriate. Auschwitz on a bottle opener is rather disturbing and disrespectful. We ask @amazon to remove the items of those suppliers,” tweeted the memorial.
An Amazon spokesperson told CNN Business in a statement: “All sellers must follow our selling guidelines and those who do not will be subject to action, including potential removal of their account. The products in question have been removed.”
“Pictures of the Nazi death camp complex were used on a variety of tree ornaments, a mouse pad, and a bottle opener,” the report noted, citing, as well, images showing “the train tracks leading to the entrance of Auschwitz II-Birkenau and a number of scenes inside the camps, where around one million Jewish people are estimated to have been killed during World War II.”
“The product description of the items listed them as ‘the ideal city souvenir’ and suggested buyers could ‘give it to a friend on different occasions as a gift,'” reported Sky News.
It took a couple of steps until Amazon succeeded in calming the controversy.
“Sadly, it is not over yet @amazon,” tweeted Auschwitz Memorial, noting that after the bottle opener had been removed, a “mousepad is another disturbing online product. We are not sure if @yadvashem would like the ‘Christmas ornament’ with a freight car used for deporting Jews for extermination either.”
However, later the memorial posted that “it seems that @amazon has removed all of the ‘Christmas ornaments’ with the images of the former Auschwitz camp,” and added: “Thank you everyone for your activity and response.” {eoa}
This article originally appeared at World Israel News.
