Auschwitz Memorial Criticizes Amazon for ‘Hunters’ and Sale of Nazi Propaganda

This is not the first time Amazon has been urged to remove “The Poisonous Mushroom.” Last month, Sheldon Lazarus, a producer of the movie “Auschwitz: The Final Witnesses,” told The Daily Mail, “If Amazon can predict what you want to buy, then they should be able to stop this filth.”

In the past, Amazon has promptly removed some listings in response to objections. In December, it stopped selling holiday ornaments and a bottle opener displaying images of Auschwitz after the memorial called the products “disturbing and disrespectful” on social media.

But Amazon takes a different approach with books than it does with home goods. “Amazon’s Offensive Products policies apply to all products except books, music, video and DVD,” the retailer’s guidelines state.

Nonetheless, Amazon has ramped up its policing of some hate-filled texts. In recent months, it has removed several titles by George Lincoln Rockwell, the founder of the American Nazi Party. A web address for “My Awakening: A Path to Racial Understanding” by David Duke, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, now directs to a page featuring a picture of an Amazon employee’s dog. In July, L.G.B.T.Q. activists persuaded Amazon to stop selling “A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality,” written by a vocal proponent of the discredited practice of using “conversion therapy” to turn gay people straight.

Some third-party booksellers that sell titles on Amazon told The Times this year that they would welcome more clarity about why some texts were prohibited and not others. They also urged the company to publish a list of prohibited books.

One argument in favor of allowing the sale of hateful texts is that they may be useful to historians and educators.

Ms. Pollock of the Holocaust Educational Trust said she did not believe that all of Streicher’s books should be destroyed. “But there’s a difference between being available at a museum/educational institution and just finding it online among toys, gifts and trivia,” she wrote in an email.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/21/books/amazon-nazi-propaganda.html