November 5, 2013, - 12:00 pm

eBay Did What?!: The “Outrage” of PC Dummies

By Debbie Schlussel

eBay’s move to pull Holocaust paraphernalia from its site is so typical. Yet another bad move that comes as a result of the unfounded outrage of politically correct dummies.

holocaustitemsjudestar

ebay

These USED TO BE for Sale on eBay. Now, You Have to Go to iCollector.com

We’ve had several such stupid moves in our PC world: Congressmen, Senators, and the Obama Administration responding to the shrieks over leaks by traitor Edward Snowden, for instance (and jeopardizing our intelligence operations and national security in the process). And remember the post-9/11 Pentagon idea for a “futures market” in which experts would bet on and try to predict terrorist attacks on America and upheaval in the Middle East? That was scrapped after it came to light in 2003 because of unfounded hysterical reaction from U.S. Senators. It would have been a helpful scientific model to predict danger to Americans and try to avoid it. But loud idiots really control the dynamics of what Western institutions do. The voice of common sense is like a dog whistle. Humans don’t seem to hear it.

And so it goes with eBay, which responded to “outrage”–outrage!–from media outlets and paid Holocaust careerists by pulling items from Nazi death camps, including arm bands, stars, and striped pajamas Jews were forced to wear. Several days ago, a Jewish friend sent me an article from the Daily Mail attacking “eBay’s sick trade in Holocaust souvenirs.” My friend was disgusted with eBay. But I responded that I have no problem with these sales and noted that I, myself, have purchased such items because it is important to show the world what happened, and not sweep it under the rug. The friend did not respond.

Unfortunately, eBay did respond.










Years ago, eBay banned Nazi paraphernalia, and so you generally cannot purchase items bearing swastikas. This was done to avoid aiding neo-Nazi sellers and buyers. And I can understand that. But, while Holocaust items appeal to them as well, they also appeal to people like me–the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors (and my mother was born in Bergen Belsen camp after the war)–who don’t want history erased and forgotten. If you live in a free world with an internet, these items are out there. Don’t erase history merely to appeal to PC shriekers. You won’t get rid of the neo-Nazis or their ability to locate and purchase these items. You’ll only give them an idea and outlet for their own NeoNaz-eBay.

I have several genuine Holocaust items in my possession. They include armbands Jews were forced to wear and various stars the Nazis forced Jews to wear. I have pink and green stars, which Nazis forced gay Jews to wear, and a red and white star, which they forced Communist Jews to wear. And so on. I only have a few of these items, but I acquired them with the intent to post photos of them online on this site and elsewhere and to educate people. I bought these items on eBay from an Irish Catholic seller from New York with whom I’ve since become friendly. He sent me several great books on the Holocaust and American history. And both he and I have something in common–several things actually: we love America, we love and support Israel, and we are interested in preserving and exposing history. Neither of us supports skinheads, the Klan, Nazi and Aryan groups. In fact, those groups, if they had their wish, would shove me into the ovens for being a Jew. Now, the man who sold me these can no longer sell them on eBay. That means people like me–and museum buyers and other parties who may be interested in these items for the right reasons–are punished.

But I don’t have a say in what’s sold on eBay. Apparently, I’m not hysterical enough about it. Loudmouths in the media and the Holocaust industry (these are all liberals who care only about dead Jews in Europe, but not the live ones fighting for survival in Israel), such as paid careerists at the Simon Weisenthal Center, get to control what eBay does. (Yup, the same Wiesenthal Center that promotes Israel-haters like Ben Kingsley.) It’s absurd. And it’s dumb. They want to control the flow of these items for their own use in fundraising and museum exhibits collecting dust (and some of these museums, like the tax-funded U.S. Holocaust Museum, use the Holocaust to promote Muslims and attack the war on terror).

People who want to buy Holocaust items are going to get them, no matter what. We live in a global marketplace where anything can be obtained. eBay is not going to stop the sale of these items. For years, if you went on eBay and typed “World War II Jewish,” you would find plenty of armbands and stars worn by Jews in the camps (or reproductions of them). And no one complained because these are pieces of history.

It’s stupid to try to regulate these things. Sooner or later (usually sooner), a politically correct marketplace ceases to be able to sell anything of value. And evil flourishes when we try to silence history (and when we try to control the marketplace so that only museums and wealthy collectors and dealers can trade; they have a strong interest in going back to the pre-internet era of sales of this stuff).

The Daily Mail reports that the sale of Holocaust items is “disrespectful” to the dead and to those who went through the Holocaust. But my late grandfather, Isaac, who went through too many camps to mention (and lost all of his family to the Nazis), would disagree. He believed in showing the world, telling the world what happened. Since we are an attention-span-challenged, visual society, the best way to do that is through items from the camps. Frankly, showing the “Jude” and “Juif” stars and the striped pajamas is far more respectful than the gobs and gobs of rotting hair, false teeth, and glasses that are on display, for example, at Auschwitz. I doubt the ghosts of Treblinka and Dora and Gross Rosen and Mathausen are crying out over what has become of their armbands or striped pajamas. They cry out for their stories to be told and remembered.

I note that a major shareholder in eBay is Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal, the Saudi Prince who openly supports and promotes Islamic terrorism and donated to Palestinian terrorist telethons (and who is the second largest individual shareholder in FOX News a/k/a PAWNN, the Prince Al-Waleed News Network). What’s worse–his behavior and actions or the sale of items that show the world what Nazis (including Muslim Nazis) did to the Jews before and what they can do again?

I vote the former.

If only there were the same hysteria about eBay owner Prince Al-Waleed that there is about the sale of an old cotton armband.

***

Exit Questions: how long ’til Prince Al-Waleed’s eBay bans Jewish and Israeli items as “disrespectful” to Muslims? How long ’til American items are banned for the same reason?

And how long ’til a viable challenger to eBay (other than bonanzle.com or ioffer.com) comes online?






4 Responses

Agreed. I saw the story and passed it by because of exactly what you wrote. I couldn’t see why there was outrage because I saw it as a piece of history and for educational purposes.

And nothing makes a stronger statement than a real, tactile object from the era one is educating another on. Not everyone who collects such things are doing it in the name of love for The 3rd Reich. Just like those old objects from Black American History that people collect. Not all of it is in the name of raaaaacism. Some of it is cute and sweet (like those black dolls and kitchen objects…).

Just think of the things that will tell the tales of Islamic repression and brutality. Those things need to be shown and preserved to tell the story and bolster the proper argument that Islam is satanic.

Skunky on November 5, 2013 at 4:11 pm

People have legitimate reasons for buying Holocaust and Jewish memorabilia and not all of them are neo Nazis and anti-Semites.

The absurd aspect of an eBay ban is Jews like Debbie Schlussel will no longer be able to collect items of Jewish historical interest because its politically incorrect!

Ironically enough, it won’t deter a single neo Nazi or anti-Semite from making a mockery of Jewish artifacts or from showing open contempt to what is near and dear to Jews.

Let me get this straight – we have to make sure Debbie doesn’t get to know about her past and own something something of Jewish history because it might fall into the wrong hands?

Sure, there is a time for justified outrage. Debbie is correct the wholly manufactured outrage here and artificial controversy isn’t one of them.

NormanF on November 5, 2013 at 4:28 pm

“I doubt the ghosts of Treblinka and Dora and Gross Rosen and Mathausen are crying out over what has become of their armbands or striped pajamas. They cry out for their stories to be told and remembered.”

Amen.

DS_ROCKS! on November 5, 2013 at 7:17 pm

Here is Israel, the gov’t uses it’s laws to prevent freedom of speech/expression.

Before, during, and after the expulsion from Gaza (2005), some Jews from there wore makeshift yellow stars, as they were being forced to retreat back to the “Auschwitz Borders.”

Haredim (proper name for “ultra-orthodox”) wear these, when their rights of religious expression are being legislated against.

The gov’t steps in and arrests them all for it.

:-/

Esser Agaroth on November 7, 2013 at 2:13 am

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