Henry Ford’s antisemitic tract The International Jew is still available for purchase on WH Smith’s website, even after retailer promises to remove it
Henry Ford’s antisemitic tract, The International Jew: Jewish Influences in American Life, is still available for purchase on WH Smith’s website, even after the retailer promised to remove it.
We wrote to WH Smith, observing that “There is no disclaimer on your website explaining the antisemitic contents and history of the book. First published in the early 1920s, the book claimed that a vast Jewish conspiracy was infecting America and fuelled antisemitism there and around the world.
“Adolf Hitler was known to keep copies of The International Jew in his office. While Ford later publicly apologised for the book, antisemites continue to use his name to promote it.
“The basis for the book was the antisemitic hoax known as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion — which we have previously found for sale by your franchisees — it purported to be the minutes of a meeting of Jewish leaders, at which they supposedly discussed their plans for global domination. It was used by the Tsar’s secret police and later by the Nazis to justify brutality against Jews.”
WH Smith replied that “We have filters to remove these types of books from links to our third party fulfilment so I’m not sure how it got through. This book will be removed tomorrow.”
However, within a week, the book was again available on the website, and now, one month later, it is still available for purchase.
In the past, WH Smith has removed The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, as well as editions of Mein Kampf, from sale, following contact from Campaign Against Antisemitism, but other material, including books and DVDs by the antisemitic hate preacher David Icke, remained available for purchase.
Gideon Falter, Chief Executive of Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “We are not asking WH Smith for much, we’d just like them to stop selling some of the most notorious anti-Jewish propaganda used by the Nazis mixed in amongst holiday reads and self-help books. We’ve caught the retailer selling Mein Kampf as an airport bestseller before, and now they’re selling Henry Ford’s infamous tract inciting Jew-hatred. They promised to remove it but now it’s sneaked back onto their website. So often we see gigantic corporations investing heavily in PR to promote their social responsibility agenda, but they talk the talk but fail abjectly to walk the walk.”