Today's award goes to the city government of Marseilles, France.
France's second city Marseille has been forced to ditch a controversial initiative that saw homeless people handed ID cards adorned with yellow triangles prompting critics to accuse authorities of implementing a "Nazi-style" scheme.
. . .
Although the initiative was aimed at making it easier for health workers to know what they were dealing with in emergency situations, human rights groups and government ministers were equally outraged, comparing the cards to the Nazi-era yellow Star of David that was sewn onto Jewish people’s clothes during the Holocaust.
And the uproar put an end to the scheme on Friday when authorities in Marseille confirmed that they were scrapping the plan.
There's more at the link.
Considering the history of France during the Holocaust, when hundreds of thousands of French Jews were forced to wear a yellow Star of David to make it easy for the authorities to identify them, and tens of thousands were deported to concentration camps by Vichy personnel acting in concert with the Nazis, it's hard to think of a more insensitive proposal than this one. What's next? Treat the homeless in hospitals named for the Nazi doctors involved in human experimentation?
Peter
If French schools are like our, the officials that came up with this idea probably have never studied history.
ReplyDeleteGiven what is going on in Europe right now in regards to Jews, the government ministers were probably just upset that the homeless symbol could be mistaken for an id card enhancement planned for the near future
ReplyDeleteMengele Manor does have a nice homey sound to it and it works in both French and English. Maybe for hospice care?
ReplyDelete(They may not use the name but some people seem determined to force that level of service.)