Clothing retailer Zara has come under fire for attempting to sell a children’s shirt that reportedly resembled a uniform worn by prisoners in Nazi concentration camps.
NPR reports Zara claims the inspiration behind the shirt was “Classic Western films,” and never meant to resemble a concentration camp uniform. Man shoppers were outraged by the top and took to Twitter to express their discontent.
“Calling shenanigans on Zara's sheriff excuse or the Holocaust shirt,” one user wrote. “Who thinks sheriffs dress in stripes?”
“Zara, you are the worst anyway, but that ‘sheriff’ (concentration camp) kid's shirt? For f**k sake! #epicfail,” another user chimed in.
“@ZARA Choice not trivial. Disappointing. Pathetic. Idiots. #yellowmoguenstarofdavid,” another added.
Hey @ZARA ! What the ell is wrong with you?! pic.twitter.com/5Xm4TfDvIH
— Carolina Farraj✌️ (@Carolinafarraj) August 27, 2014
The retailer has since pulled the shirt from store shelves and a released an apology on their Twitter account.
“The mentioned T-shirt is no longer on sale in our stores,” the company said in a statement. “The design of the T-shirt was only inspired by the sheriff’s stars from the Classic Western films, as the claim of the T-shirt says.”
NPR notes there are differences between the uniform in question and the tshirt. While child’s shirt has dark horizontal stripes, the concentration camp uniform had vertical stripe. The star on the child’s shirt also has the word sheriff stitched in.
The retail giant has previously come under fire after for other items sold on their stores. According to NPR, Zara faced controversy for selling shirts that stated “white is the new black,” which many accused the company of promoting racisim.
Zara had another incident in 2007 where they had to pull a handbag from stores after the design featured swastikas.
