Breaking News

From the cups to the towels, the platform that sells 'Auschwitz-Birkenau' accessories

December 4, 2019

EXPLODES a frightening new case of commercialization of images of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the one that was the largest and most frightening of the death-factory fields with which Nazi Germany carried out the Holocaust, supported by allies and puppets.The Jerusalem Post complaint in its online edition that the company Pixels.com, specializing among other things in "artsy accessories", ie design and fashion furnishing accessories, sells 166 articles of this kind on a global scale. Shower curtains with printed images of the Zyklone-B tanks, the gas designed and produced by the German chemical giant IG Farben to exterminate over six million Jews, or depictions of the gas chambers. And then towels, cell phone holders, cups, even beach towels with similar figurative motifs.
The case probably appears larger, more extensive, more serious than the one he had seen as responsible a few days ago Amazon, always with the online sale of objects evoking the Holocaust. Also because at the moment, despite the rapid protests that the article written by Idan Zonshin on the edition of the Israeli newspaper, from Pixels.com it appears that neither words of apology, nor self-criticism, nor announcements of wanting to suspend the sale of the objects have come yet. And the scandal explodes, as in a gruesome, horrible coincidence, a few hours after this Friday's visit by the Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel in Auschwitz-Birkenau, his first ever.The list of "artistic and design accessories" inspired with frightening ease to the everyday images of genocide and the tools designed and used industrially by the Third Reich to implement it is frightening. Pixels.com it defends itself by claiming to be only a sales platform which does not take responsibility for the "artistic or design contents" of the goods it offers. Those who support it say that selling art objects of recognized independent artists and not aligned with neo-Nazis and anti-Semites can be used to help the Memory. But he admits that he can also bring down producers and sellers in the horrible company of denial and those who commercially exploit the nostalgia of Nazism, anti-Semitism, the Holocaust.

And here is the partial but long list of objects proposed with images from Auschwitz-Birkenau. 69 types of bath towels, 97 mobile phone bags, 80 different pillows, 139 types of postcards, 62 beach towel models, 72 adult or child t-shirts, 64 portable charger versions, as many models of cups, 40 blankets. All with images depicting the tanks of the Zyklone-B, the gas chambers, parts of the field, the appalling bunk beds in which the deportees were piled up. And the word "Arbeit macht frei" is not missing. Already in August Pixels.com she had been criticized for marketing objects with similar images, but now she seems to repeat her "marketing" operation.

"The Republic will always fight in defense of freedom of information, for its readers and for all those who care about the principles of democracy and civil society"
Carlo Verdelli
SUBSCRIBE TO REPUBLIC

<! –

We are not a party, we do not seek consensus, we do not receive public funding, but we are standing thanks to the readers who buy us at the newsstands every morning, look at our website or subscribe to Rep :.
If you are interested in continuing to listen to another bell, perhaps imperfect and some irritating days, continue to do so with conviction.
Mario Calabresi
Support journalism
Subscribe to the Republic

<! –