Posted on 01/13/2005 8:24:36 PM PST by jb6
LONDON (AFP) - Britain's Prince Harry sparked fury after being photographed in a Nazi military outfit, drawing calls at home and abroad for a public apology from the young royal with a track record of embarrassing public gaffes.
AFP Photo
The photograph, captured on the cover of the best-selling daily tabloid The Sun and picked up by media around the world, was published just a fortnight before the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the former Nazi death camp at Auschwitz.
Harry appears in the shot slouched in the khaki uniform of Rommel's Afrika Korps, complete with red swastika armband, as well as a drink and cigarette in hand.
The 20-year-old was snapped last weekend at a "colonials and natives" fancy dress party also attended by Harry's brother Prince William, 22, who opted for a less controversial self-tailored "lion and leopard outfit", The Sun said.
Reactions poured in from Jewish groups and politicians in Europe and Israel, while Clarence House, the office of Harry's father Prince Charles, insisted that an initial written apology made by the younger prince was sufficient.
"I am sorry if I cause any offence or embarrassment to anyone," said Harry in the statement released late Wednesday.
"It was a poor choice of costume and I apologise."
The terse apology failed to stem a wave of condemnation.
"With Holocaust Memorial Day coming up very shortly, a written apology is not enough," said Dicky Arbiter, a former Buckingham Palace spokesman.
"If he now wants to be considered an adult, he has got to behave like an adult," he said, "and he has got to apologise in person, through radio and television."
Michael Howard, leader of the main opposition Conservative Party, added to calls for a public apology. "I think it might be appropriate for him to tell us himself just how contrite he now is," Howard, who is Jewish and had family members perish at Auschwitz, told BBC radio.
The US-based Simon Wiesenthal Centre, one of the world's leading Jewish human rights organisations, called Harry's behaviour "a shameful act" and offensive to both Holocaust victims and soldiers who died fighting Hitler's armies.
Its founder Rabbi Marvin Hier said Harry ought to go to Auschwitz with his uncle Prince Edward, head of the British delegation, for the 60th anniversary commemorations.
The Jewish Chronicle, Britain's leading Jewish newspaper, attacked Harry's action as "mind-boggling".
Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said it could not merely be written off as a mere show of poor judgment.
And the European Union (news - web sites)'s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, said it was "not an appropriate thing to do".
But some, including Sarah Ferguson, former wife to Harry's uncle Prince Andrew, and the Lord Chancellor, Lord Charles Falconer, defended Harry, saying he had already apologised and deserved a break.
The photograph, two weeks before the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Hitler's most notorious death camp in Poland in which a million Jews perished, prompted questions about Harry's plans to attend the elite Sandhurst military academy, which he is due to enter in May to train as a British Army officer.
"I don't think this young man is suitable for Sandhurst," said Doug Henderson, a former armed forces minister. "If it was anyone else, the application wouldn't be considered. It should be withdrawn immediately."
The Ministry of Defence, however, said the furore would not affect his place at Sandhurst -- even though he will be subject to military discipline once he arrives.
Blair himself stayed out of the controversy, with his official spokesman saying that while "an error was made" by Harry, any further action should be down to the royal family.
Unlike his studious older brother, Harry has the image of a fun-loving playboy, despite an attempt to reinvent himself as a humanitarian by spending time with young AIDS (news - web sites) victims in southern Africa.
He was exposed in the press for underage drinking and marijuana smoking, while last year he brawled with a photographer outside a London nightclub. One of his teachers at Eton also alleged she had come under pressure to help him pass his exams -- a claim rejected by royal spokesmen as "unfair".
But commentators have also claimed Harry has been unfairly treated by the press, especially with its unrelenting coverage of the death in 1997 of his mother, the late Princess Diana.
And if he would have dressed as Arafat, OBL, or Saddam, or even blew up innocents in a suicide belt, he would have been cast as a victim of "occupation" by the US and Israel.
Sounds like a great idea! Let us all know when you're looking for financing (smile). Mxxx
If the point is that the Nazis slaughtered many Poles like St. Maximilian Kolbe or non-Jewish laymen whose names are not familiar to us at these places, fine. Maybe it is better that these places are known by their German names for the Holocaust period since the atrocities in question were, unquestionably, German Nazi atrocities and not Polish atrocities.
You are right that I have not previously heard of Brzezinka and, now that I have, I have no reason to think any differently of what went on there and who perpetrated what against whom. I also am far more concerned about the ignorance of British youth (are our own more knowledgeable?) as to Auschwitz, Berkenau, Bergen-Belsen, and so many other locations of Holocaust horror.
You have a way with words. That is elegant and accurate commentary.
Probably no fuss either if he dressed up as Manson or some other mass murderer.
Why so many elderly people in Russia (Russian, Jews and others) were starving? Because of the reform minded/free market oligarchs like Khodorkovsky who looted the country. Now thanks to Putin the old retired people can eat a little better.
"I dressed up as the devil for Halloween one year. The DEVIL has to be worse then wearing a swastika armband, but nobody flashed my picture across the world’s media. What does a poor peasant boy have to do to get some press?"
Well, first you need to convince everyone you can think of that you are third in line for Head of State. Then, you dress up as Osama bin Laden and go to a reunion for the families of victims of 9/11.
Good point. I shouldn't take this light hearted. We have our own demons.
I don't think they are eating much better. I've seen some of the documentaries on them and it's eat or heat in many cases and medicines for the sick take precedence over food. They also have a program that helps Jewish families once they go to Israel. Some of them live in horrendous circumstances. M
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