Urban Outfitters under fire for Nazi-like tapestry
Photo: ADL
Jews urge Urban Outfitters to nix Nazi-like tapestry
Popular retail chain comes under fire from Anti-Defamation League for selling tapestry eerily similar to prison outfits that gay prisoners were forced to wear in Nazi concentration camps.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has urged the Urban Outfitters retail chain to remove a tapestry currently being sold in stores and online that is "eerily reminiscent" of the gray and white stripped prison outfits that were adorned with a pink triangle that gay male prisoners were forced to wear in Nazi concentration camps.
“We urge Urban Outfitters to immediately remove the product eerily reminiscent of clothing forced upon the victims of the Holocaust from their stores and online.”
“Whether intentional or not, this gray and white stripped pattern and pink triangle combination is deeply offensive and should not be mainstreamed into popular culture,” said Abraham H. Foxman, head of the ADL and a Holocaust survivor himself.
Holocaust T-Shirt
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According to a report by the New York Daily News, the tapestry had been taken off Urban Outfitter's website as early as Monday.
This is not the first time Urban Outfitter's has come under fire for hurtful or distasteful designs. In April 2012, the ADL urged Urban Outfitters to stop selling a shirt that featured a yellow star similar to the one Jews were forced to wear during the Holocaust in order to identify themselves.
Uniform gay prisoners were forced to wear in Nazi concentration camps (Photo: Getty Images, New York Daily News)
In May 2008, Urban Outfitters discontinued a T-shirt that featured a Palestinian child holding an AK-47 over the word "Victimized" after it received criticism from the Jewish community.
In 2003, a T-shirt released with the phrase "Everyone Loves a Jewish Girl" surrounded by dollar signs was condemned by the ADL, that said the shirt reinforced stereotypes.
Urban Outfitters was founded by Richard Hayne, Scott Belair, and Gabriel Tham-Morrobel in 1970, and was renamed and incorporated in 1976.
Headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, its inventory primarily consists of clothing, footwear, and house ware, which draw from bohemian, hipster, ironically humorous, and vintage styles.
