A recent report from the Americans Against Antisemitism (AAA) watchdog found Amazon has more than 30 Nazi propaganda films available for purchase or streaming, The Washington Free Beacon reported.
In an open letter to Amazon, AAA released the names of the various Nazi films that can be found on Amazon, including “Olympia,” “The Eternal Jew” and “Triumph of the Will.” The letter, authored by AAA Executive Director Israel Bitton, noted that Amazon’s description of “Olympia” explicitly states the film was “commissioned by [Adolf] Hitler as propaganda.” “There must be ways Amazon can ensure that the least sophisticated attempts to game the system aren’t enabled to do so, which I’m sure demands at least as much time not well spent for your global corporation as it does of our tiny nonprofit organization,” Bitton wrote. “To that end, we are willing to assist in any way necessary to ensure that Amazon—is there a department that’s tasked with stamping out what is clearly a multi-year pattern of directed abuse and gross policy violations on Amazon’s platforms?—has the necessary knowledge to fully identify the many components of the Nazi propaganda trove.”
Following the publication of the AAA report, the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) also released their own open letter to Amazon Executive Chairman Jeff Bezos on January 11. Associate Dean and Director of Global Social Action Agenda at the Simon Wiesenthal Center Rabbi Abraham Cooper wrote in the letter that January 20 will be the 80th anniversary of the German Ministers of State “voted unanimously to murder every Jew within reach of the Third Reich” and that January 27 is International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
“We all know that Amazon does not need to monetize Jew-hatred, especially at a time of raging, often violent, anti-Semitism in the United States and on social media,” Cooper wrote. “We urge you to utilize these important dates this month to announce that these hate propaganda Nazi films, used to help pave the way to the Shoah, will no longer be marketed by Amazon.”
On January 12, AAA issued a press release stating that Amazon has removed “Triumph of the Will” from its Amazon Prime streaming platform. “While we applaud that important first step and appreciate the clear recognition that there’s definitely something wrong with serving as a conduit for unvarnished Nazi racist hatred, it only reinforces the need for Amazon to complete the task by removing all 30+ Nazi films still available for purchase directly from Amazon as well as private sellers using their retail platform,” the press release stated.
UPDATE: An Amazon spokesperson told the Journal that Amazon reviewed the titles in the AAA report and removed the ones that didn’t meet their policy guidelines. Their guidelines can be reviewed under the Video, DVD, & Blu-ray and Prime Video Direct sections.
