Last update - 00:00 05/12/2006
U.S. firm discontinues sales of 'Auschwitz Souvenir T-Shirt'
By Haaretz Service
A California based online retailer has discontinued sales of novelty t-shirts bearing the message, "My grandparents went to Auschwitz ... and all I got was this lousy t-shirt," the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has announced.
CafePress.com removed pages advertising the 'Auschwitz Souvenir T-Shirt' and several other shirts bearing similarly offensive messages and imagery associated with the former Nazi death camp, the ADL said in a statement released on Monday.
"It is incomprehensible to us why anyone would create a t-shirt that makes light of the mass murder carried out at a former Nazi concentration camp," said ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman.
"While we understand the genre of novelty shirts, we also believe that retailers bear a responsibility to ensure that their products do not cross the line into causing offense or pain to others, or trivialize important and serious subjects like the Holocaust. We are gratified that CafePress.com has acted responsibly and removed these shirts from their Web site."
The organization said that in a letter it sent on Friday to CafePress Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Fred Durham, the ADL urged the company to "immediately discontinue sales of this shirt," noting that the t-shirts formerly available at www.cafepress.com/auschwitz had resulted in many complaints to the League from Holocaust survivors, their family members and others offended by the message.
The t-shirts were promptly removed after the letter was e-mailed to the company's Foster City, California headquarters.