Prince Harry's in the Doghouse
Prince Harry really stepped in it this time. He went to a costume party wearing the uniform of an SS Offcier, complete with swatstika. The 20 year old prince has apologized. Should that be the end of it? His aunt, Sarah Fergueson, thinks so.
Or, should it engender a discussion of whether the current generation of youth are being educated about the holocaust?
In Jerusalem, Robert Rozett, the director of the library at Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, said the photographs of Harry wearing a swastika showed that "the lessons of the Holocaust have not really entered deeply within his understanding and consciousness."
....We would hope that figures like Prince Harry would be more sensitive and not trivialize it. ... We would suggest that Harry and others would do well to learn more about the subject, be more careful about how they use the subject in public."
I agree with Mr. Rozett on that. I also think it probably was just a thoughtless act by Harry with no actual malice or prejudice intended. But, would your kid have done it? In most households I know of, there have been many discussions about Hitler, the Holoucaust and the persecution of Jews. Maybe they didn't have these discussions in Harry's house.
Also, this isn't the first time that the Royal Family has engaged in questinable behavior regarding the Nazis:
Over the years, the royal family has committed an array of gaffes, especially Prince Philip, the queen's husband, who reinforced his reputation for ill-chosen utterances in 1997 when he addressed Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany as Reichskanzler - the title used by Hitler.
Not only that. As The Evening Standard, among other newspapers, noted on Thursday, the royal family had an ambiguous relationship with Germany and the Nazis. ....In the 1930's, moreover, some members were widely seen as openly sympathetic to the Nazis. In one iconic photograph, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, smiling broadly, were seen greeting Hitler.
Harry's callousness sounds suspiciously to me like something he learned at the dinner table, although I wonder how many times he actually dined with either of his parents. He might have learned it from the staff.
Wherever he learned it, it is a huge mistake to to allow children to minimize the Holocaust or believe it can never happen again. My recommendation: Six months sensitivity training for all of them, Harry, Charles, Fergie and the staff included.
Update: Harry's father, Prince Charles, is livid over the incident and wants his son to visit Auschwitz
Charles was "incandescent with rage" with the 20-year-old grandson of Queen Elizabeth and wants him to make a private trip to the concentration camp to learn more about the holocaust...."There will be no publicity and they will go with a Jewish charity," the source was quoted as saying in the Sun.
Prince William is now implicated as he was with Harry when he picked out the costume at a costume shop. He will visit Auschwitz as well.
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