New York, NY, February 9, 2015 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today urged the Urban Outfitters retail chain to remove a tapestry currently being sold in stores that is “eerily reminiscent” of the prisoner gray and white stripes and pink triangles that gay male prisoners were forced to wear in Nazi concentration camps.
“Whether intentional or not, this gray and white striped pattern and pink triangle combination is deeply offensive and should not be mainstreamed into popular culture,” said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director and a Holocaust survivor. “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.”
In a letter to Urban Outfitters President and CEO Richard A. Hayne, ADL expressed its concern over the insensitive design and the company’s periodic use of products within the realm of Holocaust imagery.
Most recently, in April 2012, ADL issued a strongly-worded letter of condemnation to Urban Outfitters about a t-shirt associated with the yellow Star of David, and subsequently welcomed an explanation from the Danish company which designed it that the shirt was never meant for sale.