Waterstones apologises after ‘terrifying’ antisemitic book found in bookshop

Waterstones has apologised after a “terrifying” antisemitic book was found on the shelves of a major bookshop in Ireland.

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which inspired Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, was discovered in Waterstones subsidiary Hodges Figgis in Dublin, before a customer complained and the book was removed.

Consultant Daniel Epstein-O’Dowd, 28, was left “horrified” after he claimed he found the anti-Jewish text for sale under the shop’s Judaism section while shopping with his wife.

He told The Independent: “It was horrifying to see a text that incited violence against Jews across the world be sold so openly, let alone for it to be included in the section on Judaism as if it was some authority on the Jewish faith.

“If we had not spoken up, that book could have been picked up and dangerously prejudiced a person’s entire worldview on the Jewish community and faith.”

A Waterstones spokesperson told The Independent it did not stock the book and was investigating why it was on the shelves of the Dublin bookshop.

Published in 1903, the book was written by Russian Sergei Nilus and fabricated a series of meetings by Jewish leaders plotting to rule the world by manipulating the economy and controlling the media. During the 1920s and 1930s, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion played a role in the Nazis’ propaganda campaigns.

The Nazi party published at least 23 editions of the text between 1919 and 1939. Following the Nazis’ seizure of power in 1933, some schools used the book to indoctrinate students.

Oliver Sears, of Holocaust Awareness Ireland, said: “This book has made a terrifying contribution to the persecution and murder of Jews.

“The Protocols of the Elders of Zion has no place in a post-Holocaust world. It is beyond belief a copy was found in the section of Jewish interest in Hodges Figgis.

“It is imperative that Hodges Figgis understand [the text’s] contribution to the destruction of Jewish communities in the 20th century and its ongoing influence on antisemitic conspiracy theories.”

A Waterstones spokesperson told The Independent: “We do not stock and make every possible effort not to make available online The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, and other antisemitic books of this sort.

“From time to time, new editions or texts are listed by publishers or print-on-demand platforms and our filters fail to exclude them.

“In such circumstances, we remove them immediately that we become aware of them. In this case, we have removed the listing from Hodges Figgis and apologised for not having noticed ourselves that the book had been listed.

“This should not have happened and we are investigating how our filters may be improved to work more reliably in the future.”