WIESENTHAL CENTER URGES TAIWANESE TO DENOUNCE "PRO-HITLER" GROUP

The Simon Wiesenthal Center denounced efforts by a Taiwanese group that sympathizes with Hitler to gain Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) status. The National Socialist Association, or NSA, denies being neo-Nazi or racist but champions Adolf Hitler for his 'strong leadership' in transforming a weak Germany into a superpower. But participants on its online forums blame democracy for social unrest in the country and also call for the extermination of the children of foreign laborers.

In a statement released by the Wiesenthal Center’s associate dean Rabbi Abraham Cooper, who was meeting with religious leaders in Jakarta, said, "In the global interconnected world we live in it is unacceptable anywhere to seek to promote the policies and images of Hitler and Nazi Germany as worthy of emulation." "Once before we had to deal with the introduction of Hitler's image in Taiwan when Seiko Epson was going to make Hitler part of an advertising campaign," Cooper continued.

"So it is clear that many people in Taiwan identify Hitler not with genocide and hatred but power and notoriety." "If young people in Taiwan don't understand the unspeakable genocide brought upon million of innocent people by this tyrant, then it is time to teach the truth about the Nazi holocaust in the schools, films and exhibitions. Our Center stands ready to work with those who want to empower the young people with the truth,” Rabbi Cooper concluded.

Rabbi Cooper will travel to the South Korean capital of Seoul later this week to meet with the publisher of a popular history series that contains numerous antisemitic caricatures and conspiracy theories.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, and the Council of Europe.

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