Condemnation after men dress as Nazis at Bangkok mall festive event

[ChipButty]

Students dressed as Nazis at a Chiang Mai school's sports day festival has drawn an angry reaction both here and abroad.

[Cake Monster]

There is absolutely no excuse for this Crass, and Insensitive show of Ignorance.

In this day and age of Social Media and the Internet, there is so much information out there about the Nazis, and the holocaust. These Morons must have known what they were doing, as would the Organizers, and Sponsors of the Event.

Thailand should hang its Head in Shame over this Brazen display of Antisemitism. 

The Government should start with the banning of all the Nazi memorabilia that is openly on display, and for sale across the Nation. Such things as the Nazi Storm Trooper crash helmets, and Tee Shirts spring to mind, but there is a lot of other stuff also.

I am convinced that such acts of ( No words ) stem from the attitude of many Thai Nationals that strongly believe they are some kind of superior Race of people.

Good going Thailand ! How to win friends and influence people whilst hoping to  bring more Tourists to your shores.

 

[Fairynuff]

9 minutes ago, ChipButty said:

Students dressed as Nazis at a Chiang Mai school's sports day festival has drawn an angry reaction both here and abroad.

Lack of knowledge or education is no excuse 

[GinBoy2]

8 minutes ago, Cake Monster said:

There is absolutely no excuse for this Crass, and Insensitive show of Ignorance.

In this day and age of Social Media and the Internet, there is so much information out there about the Nazis, and the holocaust. These Morons must have known what they were doing, as would the Organizers, and Sponsors of the Event.

Thailand should hang its Head in Shame over this Brazen display of Antisemitism. 

The Government should start with the banning of all the Nazi memorabilia that is openly on display, and for sale across the Nation. Such things as the Nazi Storm Trooper crash helmets, and Tee Shirts spring to mind, but there is a lot of other stuff also.

I am convinced that such acts of ( No words ) stem from the attitude of many Thai Nationals that strongly believe they are some kind of superior Race of people.

Good going Thailand ! How to win friends and influence people whilst hoping to  bring more Tourists to your shores.

 

I think you maybe over estimating social media on this one.

 

The vast majority of Thai's read little to no English, and if you read Thai, world history doesn't exactly figure highly in the online chat world.

 

My wife has on many occasions said, until she went to school in the US, she had zero knowledge of the WW2, Nazi's, and the holocaust, and a plethora of other world events!

 

These are ignorant kids, but don't blame them, blame the system that created them

Edited December 25, 2019 by GinBoy2

[Oziex1]

8 hours ago, Deli said:

Shouldn't Israel rather take care of their domestic problems ?

Maybe but I'm impressed by the diplomat calling them out as he has,  unlike the weak watered down talk from the reps of other countries on more urgent current day problems.

[Yme]

6 hours ago, Fairynuff said:

So the Wehrmacht were not Nazis? I think your position is fairly clear

The Wehrmacht was the unified armed forces. The Nazi Party had its own SS forces: in particular the SS-Totenkopfverbände, Einsatzgruppen and Waffen-SS. Most Wehrmacht were not members of the Nazi Party. 

[Fairynuff]

26 minutes ago, Yme said:

The Wehrmacht was the unified armed forces. The Nazi Party had its own SS forces: in particular the SS-Totenkopfverbände, Einsatzgruppen and Waffen-SS. Most Wehrmacht were not members of the Nazi Party. 

Endless attempts at excusing or justifying, however the facts remain the same.

[tgw]

1 hour ago, Fairynuff said:

Nitpicking, any branch of the German armed forces at the time were doing the work of the Nazi party. Any modern representation of German uniforms would automatically be considered Nazi.

no.

my grandfather was forced into wearing that uniform.

he was a good man but had no choice in the matter.

[Bob12345]

1 hour ago, Fairynuff said:

Nonsense. You might as well say the Nazis had no control over the armed forces. ANY German military uniform of the era is seen as a Nazi uniform. The technicalities are not relevant.

If i wrote a piece about how others need to be educated, i would be sure I got my own facts correct.

 

You might as well say the Nazis had no control over the armed forces.

That makes no sense. Hitler was in control of the country, and thereby the armed forces, and I would think he was a nazi as he was the fuhrer (leader) of the NSDAP.

[HHTel]

1 hour ago, Cake Monster said:

There is absolutely no excuse for this Crass, and Insensitive show of Ignorance.

In this day and age of Social Media and the Internet, there is so much information out there about the Nazis, and the holocaust. These Morons must have known what they were doing, as would the Organizers, and Sponsors of the Event.

Thailand should hang its Head in Shame over this Brazen display of Antisemitism. 

The Government should start with the banning of all the Nazi memorabilia that is openly on display, and for sale across the Nation. Such things as the Nazi Storm Trooper crash helmets, and Tee Shirts spring to mind, but there is a lot of other stuff also.

I am convinced that such acts of ( No words ) stem from the attitude of many Thai Nationals that strongly believe they are some kind of superior Race of people.

Good going Thailand ! How to win friends and influence people whilst hoping to  bring more Tourists to your shores.

 

Nah, you have it wrong.  They don't know or understand what they are doing.  Since living in Thailand for the last 20 years, I probably know more about Thai history than the average Thai.  But that's because I went out of my way to learn about it.  Before moving here, I knew little to nothing about Far Eastern history.

 

As it says in the bible, (and I'm not at all religious), "Forgive them, Lord, for they know not what they do!"

[Fairynuff]

55 minutes ago, Bob12345 said:

If i wrote a piece about how others need to be educated, i would be sure I got my own facts correct.

 

You might as well say the Nazis had no control over the armed forces.

That makes no sense. Hitler was in control of the country, and thereby the armed forces, and I would think he was a nazi as he was the fuhrer (leader) of the NSDAP.

If your post made sense I’d respond appropriately 

[PeeJayEm]

It is quite appropriate really since Thailand did side with the Axis in the Second World War.  They fully expected the axis to win hence the opportunistic Thai Invasion of French Indochina the day after Germany occupied France And the facilitation of the Japanese advance on Malaya and Burma.

Victory Monument is testimony to the first of these albeit Thailand had to give back all territory they took from the French at the formation of the United Nations because they had been in the axis side.

So no Thai would be appalled at a Nazi uniform - and no farang should be surprised.

Edited December 25, 2019 by PeeJayEm
Spelling and grammar typo corrections

[Fairynuff]

1 hour ago, tgw said:

no.

my grandfather was forced into wearing that uniform.

he was a good man but had no choice in the matter.

I’m very aware of that, however the fact is that the holocaust happened 

[rascalman]

Very Bad Taste: Google and see how many were killed during this terrible world War. Not Funny! My father luckily survived, many did not. I once told a vendor years ago in Bangkok who was selling a mini swastika natzi <deleted>. That this was pure evil. 

[HHTel]

1 hour ago, Yme said:

The Wehrmacht was the unified armed forces. The Nazi Party had its own SS forces: in particular the SS-Totenkopfverbände, Einsatzgruppen and Waffen-SS. Most Wehrmacht were not members of the Nazi Party. 

Hitler formed the Werhrmacht consisting of around 11 million soldiers.  All these soldiers swore an oath of allegiance to Hitler himself.

The Werhmacht co-operated with the SS who gave the orders.  The Wehrmacht  carried out most of the atrocities in Germany.

Quote

During the war, the Wehrmacht committed numerous war crimes against the civilian population in occupied countries. This includes massacres of civilians and running forced brothels in occupied areas.

Massacres would in many cases come as reprisals for acts of resistance. With these reprisals, the Wehrmacht's response would vary in severity and method, depending on the scale of resistance and whether it was in East or West Europe.^[124] Often, the number of hostages to be shot was calculated based on a ratio of 100 hostages executed for every German soldier killed and 50 hostages executed for every German soldier wounded. Other times civilians would be rounded up and shot with machine guns.

 

The vast majority of the Wehrmacht officers fully co-operated with the SS in murdering Jews in the Soviet Union.

Hitler created the Wehrmacht after re-introducing conscription which formed the Wehrmacht.  They did the bidding of their bosses (the SS).

To say that they were just innocent soldiers is absolute nonsense.

 

[metisdead]

Off topic posts and replies have been removed.  

 

Inflammatory posts and replies have been removed. 

 

A post commenting on moderation has been removed. 

[Jingthing]

This is kind of silly. Any kind of WW2 German military uniform represents the Hitler Nazi regime.

[Somtamnication]

These people have zero history knowledge, and even less about their own country.

[Bob12345]

10 minutes ago, HHTel said:

To say that they were just innocent soldiers is absolute nonsense.

To say that every single one of them was pure evil is also absolute nonsense.

[HHTel]

20 minutes ago, PeeJayEm said:

It is quite appropriate really since Thailand did side with the Axis in the Second World War.  They fully expected the axis to win hence the opportunistic Thai Invasion of French Indochina the day after Germany occupied France And the facilitation of the Japanese advance on Malaya and Burma.

Victory Monument is testimony to the first of these albeit Thailand had to give back all territory they took from the French at the formation of the United Nations because they had been in the axis side.

So no Thai would be appalled at a Nazi uniform - and no farang should be surprised.

Under the Phibun regime, Thailand was dragged from neutrality to an ally of the Japanese Empire.  Thailand officially declared war on the U.S. and Britain.

 

Phibun was fortunately overthrown in 1944 and the people got their say.  Japan's 'carrot' was the promise to give back all the French territories in the Far East.  That fell very short of Japan's promise and the territories they did recover had to be given back by order of the UN.

As far as Thais not being critical of the Nazi uniform is nothing to do with history, more the lack of it.

[Fairynuff]

It came as no surprise to me when I first saw this post, that there’d be plenty of attempts at bad humour, some anti semitism and anti Israel. I expected the offensive “get over it” attitude and all those things were there...until they were mostly removed. At least nobody actually tried to deny the Holocaust and thankfully many agreed that it was wrong. I think (for me at least) this topic has run its course 

[Orton Rd]

9 hours ago, Jaxxper said:

History taught in Thai schools is Thai history. My daughter is on a school exchange for a year to the US, and guess what.....they only teach US history there.

I can understand how Thais don’t comprehend the significance of the holocaust to other nationalities. Not saying it’s right just saying I understand it.

They teach nationalistic propaganda in Thai schools not real history, some topics are taboo anyway.

Edited December 25, 2019 by Orton Rd

[kingdong]

9 hours ago, Mark mark said:

I think that the Thais do know about Pol Pot, like from the stories from the Hundreds of Thousands of Refugees from his Regime, that came over the border in the late 70's and had to live here for several Years i think. .... Pol Pot went to School in Paris you Know ... a Good Old leftie Boy Right ??? ... (As well as Kunming in southern China) .. So he was not really much like the Nazies, other then liking to put his enemies like a large proportion of his Population in to Concentration Camps.

 

Like as a Good Khmre Motor cycle Taxi Rider actually stooped his Bike indignantly, .. to tell me once ..... Pol Pot was a "Maoist" !!!  ... and you got to say this with an expression that you know that you are talking about Murderers on you face here,  ... And he was Not a Nazi. ... (Or a Marxist Either, ... He was a "Maoist" ... ) 

But academic when you consider the amount of Cambodians he mullahred,

[BestB]

12 hours ago, RJRS1301 said:

The unfortunate truth is they have none nothing illegal in Thailand

Distaste to millions, but not illegal, I doubt many Thais of any generation would have knowledge of the holocaust

But it’s not just Holocaust . It’s estimated 80-100 million people were killed in world war 2. They go bananas if foreigners rip Thai flag or draw a Buddha but totally ignorant when it comes to one of if not the largest genocides in mankind history 

[RichardL]

5 hours ago, CNXexpat said:

Right. They know perhaps a little bit about the WW2, but only the Asian part. But ask students in Europe, USA, Australia, etc. what they know about Pol Pot. I guess the answer is 99%: "who?"

That surprised me at work, where I work with with people in their 20s. None of them had heard of Pol Pot or the Khmer Rouge when I mentioned it once. OK, it's not something that would be taught in schools in the UK in general, but you'd you'd think it would be something that would filter into people's general knowledge.

 

Generally though, people typically think their country's history is far more well-known worldwide than it actually is. Every country in the world will focus on their own country and events that had a direct impact on their country.

 

People aslo forget things move on. You get Americans and other westerners thinking they'd face hostility in Vietnam for example, despite the war ending nearly 45 years ago. It'd be like a German or Japanese tourist thinking they'd face hostility in the USA in 1990. 

[kingdong]

7 hours ago, Dice Man said:

What a dreadful insult ! Those responsible should be forced to visit DACHAU  and AUSCHWITZ Concentration Camps and witness the NAZI atrocities.

I put a video of the killing fields and s21 on my facebook and it was immediately removed

[expat1010]

My general experience is that Thais, educated or otherwise are generally lacking when it comes to geography and history, save for the few that received their higher education abroad. So I think this display at the Mall is just a case of ignorance rather than malice. Last year I gave a Thai friend a large map of the world (National Geographic), the geographic knowledge of the entire family has improved as a result. 

[yogi100]

12 hours ago, canuckamuck said:

I would love to know what these folks are thinking. They must have some understanding of who the Nazi's were. Their outfits and the posters and stuff they make, show there was research and knowledge involved. I just can't see what part of the Nazi story that is attractive to Thais. There has to be some kind of unspoken appreciation.

It's the Nationalism that binds them. It's very strong in Thailand.

 

Immigrants in Thailand would be as made unwelcome in the LOS as the Jews were in 1930s Germany although few Thais would even be aware of happened back then and if they did they probably would not care anyway.

 

In WW2 Thailand signed an alliance treaty with Japan which made it an ally of Japan and although some might not find it palatable they were then also allied with Nazi Germany and the other Axis nations as well. 

[tgw]

57 minutes ago, Fairynuff said:

I’m very aware of that, however the fact is that the holocaust happened 

quite correct, yet another fact for you: Nazis were a minority in the German army.

[yogi100]

10 hours ago, CGW said:

Are they? or are they kept that way? "Thai's don't set the education syllabus, the government does! & they have no intention of changing it! The indoctrination (Education) system is working well, same as most places in the world.

You mention the "internet" is that not just for "fun" FB and all the other fantasy world nonsense, if people do start to get their perceptions changed by the "internet" the "news" will be banned! or filtered as Silicone valley is doing now.

The Thais are highly unlikely to get taught European history in their schools. It's a world away.

 

I went through the British educational system till I was 16 and we were taught nothing about Asian history apart from its affect upon the British Empire in WW2.

 

As someone else said many Westerners don't know the difference between Taiwan and Thailand. I went to the US once and a young American asked me 'What's the difference between Canada and England?' I was lost for words.

 

Thailand definitely did not have a European Empire to be affected by any conflict in Europe.