WASHINGTON, November 4 (RIA Novosti) – The online auction site eBay has apologized after a Ukrainian-born man in Canada was discovered trying to sell purported Nazi death camp memorabilia on the site, including what he said was the uniform of a Polish baker who died in Auschwitz.
“We don’t allow listings of this nature, and dedicate thousands of staff to policing our site and use the latest technology to detect items that shouldn’t be for sale,” eBay said in a statement, The Associated Press reported. “We very much regret that we didn’t live up to our own standards.”
The auction site removed more than 30 pieces of the purported Holocaust memorabilia from its listings Sunday after an investigation by Britain’s Mail on Sunday exposed the trade in the macabre relics.
The newspaper described the seller of the Auschwitz uniform as Victor Kempf, a Ukrainian-born resident of Vancouver, Canada. Kempf described himself a historian and said he was selling the uniform, listed at £11,200 ($17,900), and other items to fund book projects.
“I have had criticism in the past and I find it upsetting,” Kempf told the Mail on Sunday. “I don’t want people to think I’m just doing it for the money. These periods in history are horrific, nobody should ever forget them.”
EBay’s offensive material policy does place some restrictions on Nazi-related items, though the sale of some “historical items,” including currency and stamps, is permitted.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles called it “flat out disgusting” for eBay to profit from the items of Holocaust victims.
“This is taking the sale of Nazi death camp memorabilia to the mainstream. It is deplorable,” Cooper told the Mail on Sunday.
EBay has pledged to donate £25,000 ($40,000) to charity in the wake of the scandal, the Mail on Sunday reported.
