Jewish leaders in Germany said they were scandalised by the sale of t-shirts to protest against a new smoking ban with a yellow star evoking those the Nazis forced Jews to wear.
“It is tasteless, mean, a danger to the public, indecent, to exploit the Holocaust for smokers’ ends these days,” the deputy president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Dieter Graumann, told AFP.
The t-shirts are on sale on a website and bear a yellow star carrying the word “smoker” on the left breast.
They cost about 20 euros (about 30 dollars) without postage and are pictured on the website alongside a blurb reading: “Stop the discrimination against nicotine addicts and send a clear signal with this confessional t-shirt.”
A spokesman for prosecuting authorities in the northern city of Itzehoe said they were investigating whether the company selling the t-shirts, event organisers DMP, had broken the law.
But it has met with strong resistance in a country that was long considered a smokers’ haven and where even smoking carries political connotations linked to the Third Reich. Adolf Hitler would not allow anybody to light up in his presence.
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3 Responses
I thought it was a federal crime to sell something like that in Germany? Or is Germany starting to G-d forbid go down the path of no return again?
No in Germany it is forbidden anything with the nazi symbol. The star isn’t included in the nazi symbols, so it is disgraceful etc etc but not illegal.
Yemach shemom vezichrom .
Once an Anti-Semite always an Anti-Semite.