Amazon series criticised for false depiction of Holocaust

The Auschwitz Memorial has criticised Amazon Prime for fictitious depictions of the Holocaust in its series Hunters and for selling books of Nazi propaganda.

Hunters starring Al Pacino features a team of Nazi hunters in 1970s New York who discover that hundreds of escaped Nazis are living in the United States.

READ MORE: Al Pacino is a Nazi hunter in new Amazon series

However, the series has faced accusations of bad taste, particularly for depicting fictional atrocities in Nazi death camps, such as a game of human chess in which people are killed when a piece is taken.

“Inventing a fake game of human chess for @huntersonprime is not only dangerous foolishness & caricature. It also welcomes future deniers,” the Auschwitz Memorial tweeted. “We honour the victims by preserving factual accuracy.”

Auschwitz Memorial rips Amazon: “We do hope that one day” Amazon “will to join such institutions like @AuschwitzMuseum, @WorldJewishCong, @HolocaustUK & others, and make a decision to find vicious, antisemitic, racist, Nazi propaganda ‘objectionable’.” https://t.co/KsaYrIek6H pic.twitter.com/sBsYeGVpjw

— The Hill (@thehill) February 24, 2020

The Auschwitz Memorial is responsible for preserving the Nazi German death camp in southern Poland, where more than 1.1 million people, most of them Jews, perished in gas chambers or from starvation, cold and disease. The Memorial also criticised Amazon for selling anti-Semitic books.

On Friday, the Memorial retweeted a letter from the Holocaust Educational Trust to Amazon asking that anti-Semitic children’s books by Nazi Julius Streicher, who was executed for crimes against humanity, be removed from sale.

“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,” the Auschwitz Memorial tweeted on Sunday.

“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,” an Amazon spokesman said in a comment emailed to Reuters. Amazon said it would comment on “Hunters” later.

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. pic.twitter.com/UM2KYmA4cw

— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) February 23, 2020

In December, Amazon withdrew from sale products decorated with images of Auschwitz, including Christmas decorations, after the Memorial complained.

Separately, prosecutors launched an investigation into a primary school in the town of Labunie, which staged a reenactment of Auschwitz with children dressed as prisoners being gassed, local media reported.

The school is accused of promoting fascism in the performance in December. It could not immediately be reached for comment.