Amazon pulls ‘Auschwitz Christmas decorations’ from sale
The e-commerce giant reacted swiftly after shoppers raised the 'disturbing' ornaments depicting scenes from the death camp
The Auschwitz Memorial in Poland this week thanked supporters for pressing e-commerce giant Amazon to remove “disturbing and disrespectful” Auschwitz-themed Christmas decorations from sale.
It follows what may amount to this year’s biggest understatement, when the Memorial tweeted that “selling Christmas ornaments with images of Auschwitz does not seem appropriate”.
Fcheng, the company in question, sells a range of bottle openers, fridge magnets and Christmas decorations in the shapes of snowflakes and bells, all adorned with images of Poland, such as cathedrals, castles and public squares.
The products showing scenes from the Nazi death camp, including a ceramic Christmas ornament with a freight car used for deporting Jews for extermination, led to revulsion online, but others said the images were “computer generated”.
Shoppers who found the products offensive alerted the company. Administrators soon replied that they had “deleted all related products immediately”.
An Amazon spokesman said: “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.”
Nazi Germany set up the death camp after occupying Poland during the Second World War. Up to one million people were killed there from 1940-45.
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