14 DAY TRIAL // A series of products, including bottle openers and mouse pads, using photos of the Auschwitz concentration camp have been pulled from Amazon after public backlash, with all listings belonging to a third-party seller called Fcheng and reportedly based in China.
The issue was first reported by Auschwitz Memorial, the museum the currently maintains the Nazi death camp in Poland, who called for Amazon to remove the products that it described as “disturbing.”
The listings also included Christmas decorations, as well as a series of Valentine’s Day gifts.
“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,” the museum tweeted.
All links have already been removed
The Twitter post received thousands of reactions, many of which included support messages from people around the world who also called for Amazon to remove the products picturing Auschwitz. Several reached out to Amazon directly to report the incident.
Amazon has already removed the products and explained in a statement for CNN that sellers who violate its rules could be banned from selling products on Amazon. However, the account called Fcheng is still active at the time of writing this article, albeit the infringing listings have indeed been removed.
“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,” Amazon said.
As some users explained, the products are most likely based on computer-generated databases of photos collected from the Internet and Amazon can’t be blamed for anything, maybe other than removing the products faster or blocking them for going live in the first place.