Romanian Mayor, Son Ramp Nazi Uniform In Fashion Show, Stir Jewish Anger

July 21, 2009 3:08 p.m. EST

Bucharest, Romania (AHN) - An anti-Semitism group in Romania has called for the resignation and prosecution of a local mayor for wearing a Nazi uniform and letting his son do the same during a weekend fashion show.

The Center for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism in Romania issued the demand Monday in a letter to the country's prosecutor general saying Radu Mazare, the mayor of the Black Sea town of Constanta, and his 15-year-old son violated a law against the wearing of such costume.

Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem also wrote to the 41-year-old Mazare asking him to admit his mistake and apologize.

The mayor had denied that the uniform he and his son wore on Sunday was that worn by the World War II German police notoriously known by their initials SS, but rather that of a German army infantry general. Mazare said the uniform was his favorite and he was just imitating the costumes in Tom Cruise's World War II movie 'Valkyrie.'

Wearing Nazi uniform is banned in Romania, where more than 270,000 Jews were said to have been killed by the military or died from mistreatment while the country was an ally of Adolf Hitler-led Germany from 1940 to 1944.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center said Mazare's action was an expression of support to the killing of Romanian Jews during World War II.