Toy shop slammed for selling £50 Nazi Halloween costume as store owner refuses to pull stock
A TOY shop has been slammed for selling a Nazi Halloween costume.
But the owner of the children’s store has refused to pull the Gestapo get-up, saying: “Where do you draw the line because somebody, somewhere will always be offended?”
The tasteless costume was spotted for sale at Kids Korner in Herne Bay, Kent, KentOnline reports.
Owner Melvin Smedley told the website he couldn’t afford to ditch the stock – but once it had sold out he wouldn’t re-order it.
The costume, which costs £52.99, is advertised as a “Gestapo Officer” outfit.
It features a black belt, boots, shirt, trousers and hat with a red arm band.
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The Gestapo, or Geheime Staatspolizei, were the official secret police of Nazi Germany.
The thuggish group was created by evil war criminal Hermann Göring and later headed up by Heinrich Himmler.
They terrorised Jewish people during the Second World War, hunting them down to send to concentration camps and committing horrific atrocities against their community.
They also targeted black people, the Roma community, gay people and the disabled.
A member of the local Jewish community in Kent told how the inappropriate garb should never be seen as “a bit of fun”.
He told KentOnline: “Seeing a Gestapo uniform out in public would certainly cause offence but also a great upset to many, whether Jewish or not.”
Branding the sale of the uniform as a costume “thoughtless and potentially harmful,” he said anyone selling it should carefully consider the consequences.
Toy shop owner Mr Smedley insisted he was not “racist or sexist,” adding: “Clearly this has upset a specific section of the community, but I am a very approachable person and will talk to anyone directly and listen to their point of view.”
However he added that history can’t be erased and the costume could be used “from a historical point of view”.