Amazon removes AI-generated Holocaust memoir clones published under antisemitic names

Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, called the incident “an insidious form of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.”

By Jewish Breaking News

Amazon has removed several AI-generated copies of a Holocaust survivor’s memoir after they appeared on its platform under fake author names with anti-Semitic connotations.

Ninety-five-year-old survivor Renee Salt had spent decades sharing her testimony in schools before publishing her memoir, “A Mother’s Promise” in February, detailing her harrowing journey through the ghettos, Auschwitz, and Bergen-Belsen.

Shortly afterwards, counterfeit AI-generated copies of Salt’s authentic memoir began popping up on Amazon under blatantly antisemitic names.

One version was published under “Jude Williams,” a reference to when the Nazis infamously forced Jews to wear Star of David armbands with the word ‘Jude’ on it.

A second fraudulent version titled “From Darkness to Light: Remarkable Journey of Holocaust Survivor Renee Salt” was published by someone using “Penny Pincher” as their name.

“They have stolen my life story. I just don’t believe it – it’s outrageous,” Salt told Daily Mail.

It wasn’t until co-author and renowned journalist Kate Thompson discovered the counterfeits on Amazon that the online retail giant took action by removing the titles, defending the oversight by saying it is “constantly evaluating developments” around generative AI.

“To take a Holocaust survivor’s testimony for your own profit is beyond reprehensible. It’s about as low as humanity can go. Creaming profit off the hard work of a 95-year-old who escaped the gas chambers is about as low as it is possible to get,” Thompson tells the London-based newspaper.

“I had no way to explain to Renee that all our hard work, the trauma she heroically relived, her very personal story, was fair game for anyone with a reasonable knowledge of AI and what books were selling well on Amazon.”

Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, called the incident “an insidious form of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.”

“To see Renee’s painful experience of the Holocaust rewritten by AI under blatantly anti-Semitic pen names is disgusting. These fake versions put the integrity of the past at risk,” she said. “We owe it to Renee and to all who survived the heinous crimes of the Nazis to uphold the truth of the past.”