Amazon has been criticized by the Auschwitz Memorial recently for its depiction of the Holocaust in its new series Hunters and for selling books featuring Nazi propaganda on its website.
Reuters reports that Amazon has received criticism from the Auschwitz Memorial over its depiction of the Holocaust in its new Prime series Hunters, which tells the story of a group of Nazi hunters tracking down former Nazis seventy-five years after the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp by Soviet troops.
Hunters was released on Friday and stars Al Pacino and Logan Lerman. The series follows a group of Nazi hunters as they discover that hundreds of escaped Nazis are living in secret in the United States and their subsequent efforts to track these Nazis down. The series has faced accusations of being in poor taste, particularly due to the depiction of fictional atrocities that were supposed to have taken place in the death camps.
One scene that has been heavily criticized features a game of human chess in which people are killed when a piece is taken from a chessboard. The Auschwitz Memorial tweeted: “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.”
The Memorial further criticized Amazon for selling anti-Semitic books on its platform. The Auschwitz Memorial tweeted: “When you decide to make a profit on selling vicious antisemitic Nazi propaganda published without any critical comment or context, you need to remember that those words led not only to the #Holocaust but also many other hate crimes.”
When you decide to make a profit on selling vicious antisemitic Nazi propaganda published without any critical comment or context, you need to remember that those words led not only to the #Holocaust but also many other hate crimes motivated by #antisemitism. https://t.co/qX4Gsz5h6E
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) February 23, 2020
An Amazon spokesperson told Reuters in a statement: “As a bookseller, we are mindful of book censorship throughout history, and we do not take this lightly. We believe that providing access to written speech is important, including books that some may find objectionable.” The company stated that it would comment on “Hunters” at a later date.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com
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