Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on March 18, 2020

Listings for most editions of Adolf Hitler's Nazi manifesto Mein Kampf have been removed from online retail giant Amazon. Other works by Nazi authors or writing encouraging anti-Semitism have also been taken down, according to a Monday report from The Guardian.

However, the book has not been completely banned from Amazon, as some academic versions have been deemed as "educational."

"As a bookseller, we provide customers with access to a variety of viewpoints," an Amazon spokesperson told Newsweek, "including titles that serve an important educational role in understanding and preventing anti-Semitism. All retailers make decisions about what selection they choose to offer and we do not take selection decisions lightly."

Mein Kampf was written by Hitler before he rose to power in Germany and began his attempted genocide of Jewish persons. According to a description of the book by the Jewish advocacy group Anti-Defamation League, the book serves as Hitler's "blueprint" for his actions during World War II.

"Written eight years before he assumed power in Germany, the book lays it all out: his megalomania, his conspiratorial obsession with Jews and his lust for power," the description reads. "For all who claimed they didn't know, all they had to do was read Mein Kampf to know of Hitler's intentions."

Amazon has also removed a listing for The Poisonous Mushroom, a children's book published by Nazi Julius Streicher around 1938. Allegorical in nature, the book attempts to draw a parallel between the Jewish people and the titular poisonous mushroom.

Streicher also founded the anti-Semitic newspaper Der Strmer, or, in English,The Stormtrooper. After being found guilty during the Nuremberg trials for crimes against humanity, Streicher was executed in 1946.

Based in London, the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET) wrote a letter to Amazon which may have led to The Poisonous Mushroom being removed from the Amazon website.

"As the Holocaust moves from living history to history, our survivors regularly raise the concern that Holocaust denial and antisemitism still persist," wrote HET Chief Executive Karen Pollock MBE in February. "It is worrying that distinguished publishers like Amazon would make available products that promote racist or hate speech of any kind, let alone this from the darkest period of European history."

Pollock also referred to the book as "obscene," and asked Amazon to "remove these books from Amazon urgently, audit other items which may be on sale, and review your policies so this does not occur in the future."

Newsweek reached out to the HET but did not receive a response in time for publication.

Amazon has recently drawn criticism for its television program, Hunters, available for streaming on Prime Video. Hunters frequently flashes back from its primary setting in 1977 to scenes from concentration camps during World War II. One of those scenes involved a chess game played in a field with Jews taking the places of game pieces in a match overseen by Nazis.

Among those criticizing the scene was the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum which tweeted in February that the scene was "dangerous foolishness & caricature."

"Auschwitz was full of horrible pain & suffering documented in the accounts of survivors. Inventing a fake game of human chess for @huntersonprime is not only dangerous foolishness & caricature. It also welcomes future deniers. We honor the victims by preserving factual accuracy."

Show creator David Weil responded by acknowledging that the scene was not based on sheer fact, but was included in the show to "most powerfully counteract the revisionist narrative that whitewashes Nazi perpetration, by showcasing the most extremeand representationally truthfulsadism and violence that the Nazis perpetrated against the Jews and other victims."

More here:

Amazon Bans all Non-Academic Editions of 'Mein Kampf,' and Other Nazi Propaganda - Newsweek

Category: Holocaust Denial
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