Dutch shop apologises for colouring book featuring ....

 

 

 
 
A Dutch pharmacist has apologised after it unwittingly sold copies of a colouring book featuring Adolf Hitler.
 
Retail chain Kruidvat said it "deeply regretted the incident" and has pulled the books from its shelves after a flurry of complaints.
The "colour-by-numbers" book features a cartoon image of the Fuhrer scowling as he gives a Nazi salute while wearing a swastika armband.
 
A spokesman for the book's Belgian publisher, Trifora, pointed out that it includes less controversial figures to colour in, such as Nelson Mandela and Abraham Lincoln. 
 
"It is a nasty combination of circumstances. We check the book on translations, but do not check all the colouring pictures," he told Dutch media.
 
"My suspicion is that the man who created the colouring book got a book of famous people out of the closet and selected a pair, which unfortunately included Adolf Hitler. Maybe he did not recognize him."
 
He added that the printers in India had made a "horrible mistake" and that the company apologised "unreservedly."
 
Dozens of copies of the book were bought before it was taken off the shelves and the pharmacy chain has offered refunds to those who return it. 
 
Disgruntled customers took to the shop's Facebook page to show their disdain for the book. 
 
"What a mega-crazy action from your part," wrote one man. "Well done...are you proud of this?" said another. 
"Are there any more available," asked a third, "I'm sure the AfD [the German far-right party] would like a few copies."
It is not the first time the German dictator's image has caused grave offence among parents. 
 
Last year an Australian private school apologised after a child was allowed to dress up as Hitler for "Book Week" and paraded in front of his Jewish classmates. 
 
The unnamed pupil was then handed an award for being the "best dressed child" at the event.
 

Seriously why are people so easily offended by obvious jokes or memes about Hitler?
 
PEWDIEPIE DID NOTHING WRONG!

I schnell something's rotten in Denmark...

bapu
 

 

jamesg1213
What a rotter.
 
Damn.

 
Best Answer

 

Dear Bapsi, help yourself to as many as you like:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Three Reichs make a wrong.

This is very helpful!
 

SteveStrummerUK
 
Or even:
 

 
 
Yammy!!

I Am impressed and Reichfully so!

Rain

Bhav
Seriously why are people so easily offended by obvious jokes or memes about Hitler?
 
PEWDIEPIE DID NOTHING WRONG!

 
Why is it that people need to make yet another tasteless joke about a madman who tried to exterminate an entire race and killed millions of innocent people, including children?
 
Freedom of expression goes both ways - you make dumb jokes, you assume the reactions and consequences.

Because people like dark humour.

Rain

 
Because people like dark humour.

I have a rather twisted and dark sense of humour - some would even call it macabre actually - and I can even appreciate some jokes about this very subject, but it never prevented me from using common sense so I can understand that trivializing Hitler and the death of millions by including him in a colouring book is actually just irresponsible and stupid. 
 
But for anyone completely desensitized who lacks common sense, indeed, sense of humour is a most convenient excuse.
 
If someday people worry about showing empathy a tenth as much as they worry about displaying their so-called sense of humour, we'll probably be able to laugh at everything. I wouldn't hold my breath though.
 
But that's just my 2 cents.
 
 
EDIT - FWIW, this was not meant as a personal attack against you. It's my reaction to general observations which seemed appropriate in the context of this discussion.
 

I wasnt so much referencing the picture in this book as a joke, but as in the rest of my post, Pewdiepie:
 
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2643864/pewdiepie-says-death-to-all-jews-and-hitler-was-right-in-latest-shock-joke-video/
 
The relevance to the colouring picture is how easily people get offended simply by seeing a picture of Hitler. Theres literally no context behind it, its just a blank picture for colouring.

sharke
I regularly see young people wearing the Soviet hammer and sickle on a red t-shirt, the symbol of a regime that killed tens of millions of its own citizens. I also see them wearing t-shirts sporting images of Che Guevera, a man who symbolized a regime which brutalized its own citizens, jailed or killed dissenters and created conditions so bad that over a million took to flimsy rafts across shark infested waters to escape. Some of these people hold the "you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs" philosophy, and while they're not out there on the streets chanting racist slogans or threatening people, you just know that come the revolution they're hoping for, they'd be the first to lead their "incorrectly thinking" neighbors into the Gulag at the point of a bayonet. 
 

 
I agree but I tend to see those people as a bunch of very confused poseurs who'd be the first victims of the kind of ideology that they are theoretically supporting. Overgrown know-it-all college students.
 
There are stupid people who believe and say all kinds of stupid things. The fact they they do not represent a real threat makes a the difference to me.