Christmas ornaments spark outrage on social media

Poland’s Auschwitz Memorial and Museum flagged Christmas ornaments and bottle openers with photos of the concentration camp being sold on Amazon. Amazon later confirmed that the products had been removed.

The Auschwitz Memorial and Museum released a tweet on December 01, 2019 that states;

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/0uG2JG558e pic.twitter.com/ucZoTWPk1W

— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) December 1, 2019

An Amazon spokeswoman said in a statement that the products had been removed and that “all sellers must follow our selling guidelines and those who do not will be subject to action, including potential removal of their account.” It was not immediately clear how long the merchandise was advertised on the online retail platform. Amazon declined to answer further questions. 

A user on twitter said, "I think/hope that this isn’t a deliberate listing, rather a computer grabs images and puts them on generic ornaments. If (God forbid) someone were to purchase them, then they would make one. A similar thing happened at Sears where they sold a lewd Nintendo character on a pillow."

The ornaments displayed all scenes from the Nazi death camp where mass killing was conducted in World War Two that housed and mainly killed jews. The computer mouse-pad bearing the image of a freight train used for deporting people to the concentration camps.

Amazon did the right thing by pulling the product down and marked not for sale. 

Article by: Michael Palmer