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The Schmooze

Auschwitz Mini Skirts, Throw Pillows, To Be Removed From Online Store

Everything is so commercial these days — even images of a Nazi death camp.

The Auschwitz Memorial and Museum rebuked the online marketplace Redbubble on Tuesday, stating that using images of the concentration camp on vanity items isn’t appropriate.

The museum’s account included screenshots of products being sold on the site by three different users — an “Auschwitz II Birkenau” throw pillow, an Auschwitz tote bag, and a “chimney” mini skirt. Redbubble is an online venue for independent “stores” to sell housewares personalized with artwork and digital prints.

The museum tweeted directly at Redbubble, writing “Do you really think that selling such products as pillows, mini skirts or tote bags with the images of Auschwitz – a place of enormous human tragedy where over 1.1 million people were murdered – is acceptable? This is rather disturbing and disgraceful.”

“We are taking immediate action to remove these and similar works available on these product types,” the company wrote. “Redbubble is the host of an online marketplace where independent users take responsibility for the images they upload.”

The company added that they “are grateful to be made aware of these concerns.”

The social media exchange comes just short of a week after Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day. In March 2019, the Auschwitz Museum urged tourists to stop taking photos on the train tracks leading to the front of the camp in respect to those who were killed in the Holocaust.

Adrianna Chaviva Freedman is the Social Media Intern for the Forward. You can reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @ac_freedman

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