Spanish fashion retailer Zara is apologizing profusely for the coming up with the idea of vending a striped T-shirt bearing a yellow star and looking a whole lot like something prisoners would wear on their way to yet another day of forced labor in Auschwitz.
Did something get lost in translation here?
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Zara said the shirt, which they advertised online as striped “sheriff” T-shirt, was inspired by “the sheriff’s stars from the Classic Western films.”
Was that Sheriff Mengele, by chance?
“We honestly apologize, ” Zara said on Twitter in response to outraged tweets. There were many of them.
The shirt was removed from Zara stores and website, according to a press release from Zara’s parent company, Inditex. It was on sale for only a couple of hours before the company pulled it “due to the potential similarity with the Star of David, ” the company said.
This is not the first time Zara has jumped in the boiling hot part of the pool for using controversial imagery, according to the World Jewish Congress.
In 2007 they pulled handbags adorned with Nazi swastikas from British stores.
What is it with these people and the fascination with murderous barbarism?
The Anti-Defamation League said it welcomed the removal of what it called the “deeply offensive” shirt.
“The shirt emblazoned with the yellow star is in poor taste and is deeply offensive to Jews and Holocaust survivors. To anyone who knows their history, this kind of imagery should be off-limits. We welcome Zara’s recognition of the shirt’s potentially offensive imagery and removal from sale, ” the group said in a statement, and added:
“This is not the first time we have seen a retail clothing company making this same offensive mistake. The fact that this keeps happening shows that there is a serious need for education about the Holocaust and the history of anti-Semitism.”
So, go ahead, educate. Personally, I think life’s too short.
