Christmas decorations come in all shapes and sizes, but shoppers were outraged to discover that one seller on Amazon was using pictures of Auschwitz on theirs.
As a result of backlash, Amazon took action and had these offensive Christmas decorations removed from their website. The products were made by a third party seller on Amazon, and were not official Amazon merchandise.
The decorations were spotted by the official Auschwitz Memorial Museum, who took to Twitter to express their outrage at the fact these images were being used for Christmas decorations.
They wrote, ‘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.’
Many Twitter users shared their thoughts on this, with several of them taking action and reporting the products to make Amazon aware of the situation.
One wrote, ‘Why would anyone think this was a good idea?’
Another added, ‘Get your act together, Amazon. Issue an apology and vet better.’
A third said ,‘I have emailed the seller and asked for the items to be removed and explained the reason why. Looking at their products, I believe it is computer generated and they haven't realised what image is being used.’
Auschwitz Memorial send out a follow up tweet confirming that the products had been taken down. Amazon issued a statement which read, ‘all sellers must follow our selling guidelines and those who do not will be subject to action, including potential removal of their account.’
According to Wired, ‘many of these listings are likely the unfortunate byproduct of an increasingly automated ecommerce landscape. In this world, sellers attempt to make a profit by offering vast quantities of easily customizable items to fill every consumer niche imaginable.'
They added, ‘A merchant, for example, might flood the market with thousands of posters featuring different and sometimes incredibly obscure inspirational quotes, in the hopes that some pay off’.
This seems to be what has happened in the case of the Auschwitz merchandise, which is why Amazon has now taken action and had them removed due to the inappropriate nature of them. Similar products were also found on Wish, and have since been removed.
