“Disturbing and disrespectful.”
Christmas ornaments depicting scenes from Auschwitz have been removed from Amazon following complaints.
The decorations, which included tree ornaments and bottle openers featuring images of the concentration camp in Poland, had been on sale through the online retailer.
The Auschwitz Memorial Museum requested that the products be removed on Sunday, calling them “disturbing and disrespectful.”
“Selling ‘Christmas ornaments’ with images of Auschwitz does not seem appropriate,” read a post from the official Auschwitz Memorial account on Twitter.
“Auschwitz on a bottle opener is rather disturbing and disrespectful. We ask Amazon to remove the items of those suppliers.”
It seems that @amazon has removed all of the "Christmas ornaments" with the images of the former Auschwitz camp. Thank you everyone for your activity and response. https://t.co/VGFnSDMWM9
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) December 1, 2019
Amazon has since removed the ornaments from sale, as well as products including a mousepad with images from Birkenau and another decoration featuring a freight train car.
In a statement, Amazon said that “all sellers must follow our selling guidelines and those who do not will be subject to action, including potential removal of their account”.
Auschwitz Memorial Museum has now requested that online shopping company Wish also remove the ornaments from their website.
“We hope that their reaction will be similar to Amazon and such project will be quickly removed too,” they said.
Over one million people died at Auschwitz during the Second World War, most of them Jewish prisoners. It was the largest Nazi run concentration camp built during that time.
Earlier this year, the Memorial Museum was forced to ask visitors to stop take “disrespectful” photos while touring the site.
These included images of tourists balancing on the railway tracks leading towards the camp.
“When you come to Auschwitz Museum remember you are at the site where over one million people were killed,” they wrote on Twitter.
“Respect their memory. There are better places to learn how to walk on a balance beam than the site which symbolises deportation of hundreds of thousands to their deaths.”
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