Australian online retailer withdraws Holocaust parody T-shirts

06 June 2011

The internet company Red Bubble has withdrawn Hipster Hitler and other T-shirts that satirized the Nazi dictator and the Holocaust. The withdrawal follows complaints by the Jewish community. The online retailer, which is based in Melbourne and markets the works of more than 150,000 artists worldwide, stopped selling the ‘Hipster Hitler’ line of T-shirts that parody the Holocaust with slogans such as “Eastside Westside Genocide,” “Back to the Fuhrer,” and “Three Reichs And You’re Out.”

“We do have a high commitment to freedom of expression,” Red Bubble’s chief executive officer Martin Hosking was quoted as saying by the newspaper ‘Sunday Age’. “I do, however, have to listen to people who have such an intense experience with the Holocaust,” he pointed out. Hipster Hitler, a New York-based art and clothing firm, still has the offending T-shirts for sale on its own website.