Holocaust-themed
Christmas ornaments, bottle openers and Valentine’s Day keychains being sold on
Amazon ignited public outcry on Sunday, with a memorial and museum for the former Auschwitz Nazi death camp calling the items inappropriate and disrespectful.
“Selling ‘Christmas ornaments’ with images of Auschwitz does not seem appropriate,” the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum tweeted while sharing photos of the items. “Auschwitz on a bottle opener is rather disturbing and disrespectful.”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. https://t.co/0uG2JG558epic.twitter.com/ucZoTWPk1W— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) December 1, 2019Though some of the items were quickly removed from the website, the former concentration camp’s memorial flagged several others that remained for sale.
These items included a mouse pad and a light switch cover, which were both described by the seller as “Massacre Auschwitcz [sic] Birkenau Jewish Death.” A couples’ Valentine’s Day keychain set featuring a photo of a freight car that was used to deport Jews for extermination was also not immediately removed.“All sellers must follow our selling guidelines and those who do not will be subject to action, including potential removal of their account,” an Amazon spokesperson told HuffPost while confirming the removal of several of the items pointed out by the memorial on Twitter.
The remaining items, which were alerted to the spokesperson by HuffPost, would be reviewed for removal, they said.
The vendors hawking the Holocaust-themed merchandise appear to sell generic items that feature different stock photos, often of famous locations. Contact information for the sellers was not readily available, so HuffPost was unable to reach them for comment.
The products’ discovery comes a little more than a week after luxury
fashion brand Loewe pulled a black and white striped ensemble from its shelves after it was compared to the uniforms worn by prisoners at Nazi concentration camps.
The Spanish designer said it was “never our intention” to evoke memories of the
Holocaust through the design.