HolocaustFaceMasks.Com Stops Selling the Masks and Plans to Shut Down

It had sold less than 10 masks.

[additional-authors]

Ben Sales, JTA

August 11, 2020

BERLIN, GERMANY – APRIL 02: Made-to-order protective face masks lie on an ironing board at the workshop of master tailor Ala Hadye on April 02, 2020 in Berlin, Germany. Hadye, who has had to close her shop due to nationwide measures enacted to slow the spread of the coronavirus, says she is making 30 to 40 masks per week on custom order from her customers. “I could be making masks all week,” she said, but says she turns large orders down and concentrates instead on her core customers. “There are so many others making masks”, she says of other tailors she knows. Since her shop is closed she sends the masks to her customers by post rather than having them come to the shop. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

(JTA) — A website dedicated to selling face masks featuring images of the Holocaust has stopped selling the masks and said it would shut down on Aug. 11.

HolocaustFaceMasks.com, which had sold fewer than 10 masks as of July 29, had marketed masks emblazoned with famous pictures of the Holocaust. One showed a child with his hands raised at gunpoint and an image of crematoria at a concentration camp.

The site stopped selling the items apparently because of the backlash it received.

“We have removed items with the most complaints, and our other items will remain available until we close the website August 11,” its homepage said.

The message defends the intention behind the site and appears to implicitly criticize Jews who objected to it. The site’s founder told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in July that he believes requiring face masks could lead to something like the Holocaust “or even more sinister.”

Anti-Semitism watchdogs have called such comparisons an unacceptable trivialization of the Holocaust.

“Unfortunately and understandably, many had emotional reactions to the original designs and the concept behind them was not considered,” the message on the site reads. “The reaction to demand that people should not be able to express their opinion that tyranny is afoot, is troublesome. This reaction is especially troublesome when it is made by those who claim to have the strongest associations with one of the most tyrannical events in human history.”