Home > Nazi doll saddens Holocaust survivor
Painful, not necessary,' says Calgary man. Manufacturer defends toy ascool figure’
by JEREMY HAINSWORTH
VANCOUVER - Dolls depicting members of a Nazi SS combat division originally created to guard concentration camps are now available in Canadian stores.
Auschwitz death camp survivor Sid Cyngiser is saddened by the toy. He doesn’t think it should be on store shelves.
"It’s a painful thing to see that. It’s not necessary," said the 80-year-old Calgary man, whose grandmother, mother, father and sister vanished in the camps. "It’s 60 years after the war and people are still busy with hatred."
The `Totenkopf Division’ doll, sporting military fatigues and the trademark death’s head insignia on the cap, comes with a Walther pistol and gas mask. The packaging infers that the division fought in Normandy in 1944 as a tank unit ? which part of the division did.
The Totenkopf was, however, a group originally formed at Dachau, site of the first concentration camp outside Munich. It opened in 1934.
Martin Kitchen, professor emeritus of history at B.C.’s Simon Fraser University, said the sale of the dolls is "most extraordinary."
Kitchen said it was a "fanatically ideological group" numbering about 40,000 members at its peak.
"They were a nasty bunch," Kitchen said. "They were responsible for a number of atrocities on the Eastern Front."
The figure is part of a World War II series from Plan-B Toys of Groveport, Ohio.
Other figures in the doll series include several Waffen SS figures and a variety of U.S. airborne soldier figures as well as regular Wehrmacht troops. The Waffen SS sniper comes with a recruitment poster.
The SS was the elite private army initially formed as a bodyguard for Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Plan-B co-president Chris Borman said the company did not set out to offend anyone but was just portraying the Totenkopf troops that fought in Normandy.
"Everyone knows the Germans were Nazis in World War II," Borman said. "We picked them because they’ve got the coolest gear. It makes for a cool figure.
"There’s really no harm in it," he adds. "We won the war. We already know the outcome.
"That division was involved in some terrible things, but wasn’t everyone during World War II? It’s just history."
Leigh Poirier, executive director of the Canadian Toy Testing Council, said her group wouldn’t even look at a toy like this "due to its negative nature."
"It doesn’t promote positive play for children. Our mandate it to encourage that."