Nazis, the Holocaust, and World War II Haunt Thailand

BANGKOK, Thailand -- A parade by proud students wearing Nazi uniforms with swastika armbands, carrying toy rifles and led by a girl dressed as Hitler with a fake moustache, has resulted in condemnation by the U.S.-based Simon Wiesenthal Center and public debate in Thailand about their understanding of the Holocaust.

Adults in the audience applauded and photographed the Catholic Sacred Heart Preparatory School's public parade in the northern city of Chiang Mai which included teenage girls -- cheeks adorned with swastikas -- stretching out their arms in Sieg Heil salutes, while others walked by reverently carrying big Nazi flags.

When foreigners, along with Israeli, British and other diplomats complained, the school's officials apologized for the Sept. 23 "fancy dress sports day" parade.

"The students feel alarmed by the response, as they had no intention to express any hidden agenda, and the teachers are sorry for what their students did," said Chanwit Tubsuphan, secretary-general of the Private Education Commission Office.

"Our phony Nazis, who wouldn't know Mein Kampf from Hello Kitty...broke the European taboo with their performance," wrote respected cultural columnist Kong Rithdee on Oct. 1.

"Perhaps someone made them read the uncorrected history books because technically, and this is a fact, we were on the Fuhrer's side when WW II started -- the Allies bombed us, remember?" Mr. Kong said.

"When I was a child I, too, had no idea of the Holocaust and had never heard of Auschwitz or the Final Solution," said Meechai Burapa, who frequently comments on current affairs.

"As a youngster, I saw the Nazis and the SS guards in movies and I thought their uniforms looked cool," he said, referring to Schutzstaffel (SS) uniforms designed by German fashion label Hugo Boss, who used forced Polish and French laborers.

"I was a victim of ignorance," Mr. Meechai said in an open letter.

The extensive attention to detail by the Catholic school's students -- whose Nazi uniforms included purchased hats, scarves, and other regalia -- suggested to critics that parents and teachers knew about, and funded, their parade.

Prachatai, a Thai news website (www.prachatai.com) which said it received $150,000 from Washington's National Endowment for Democracy during the past three years, published a satire on Sept. 30 about a Thai teacher's struggle to explain, to a female student at the school, why the Nazi parade was wrong.

"But sir, if the Nazis wanted racial purity, a sort of Germany for the Germans, isn't that the same as Thailand for the Thais? I mean, our civics classes are full of ideas about being truly Thai," the student says to her teacher in the satirical story.

"And this Lebensraum idea, and Gross Deutschland. Isn't this like these maps of Thailand in all our history books showing the bits of Lao and Malaya and Cambodia and so on that should be Thailand?" she asks.

The satire describes how "representatives from the Israeli and German Embassies and the Papal Nuncio," plus "the Assistant Rabbi from Chiang Mai Synagogue, a priest from the Chiang Mai Diocese, representatives from the Anti-Defamation League, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre and the Yad Vashem Institute," and two suspected "Mossad" agents are also in the classroom to monitor the teacher's lecture.

"For people who have grown up in a country where toddlers are ordered to turn left and right like soldiers since kindergarten, while the male high school students are forced to cut their hair like the Marines -- and where a coup d'etat is a common occurrence -- many have simply come to accept militarism as part of life," wrote the English-language Bangkok Post's Assistant Editor, Sanitsuda Ekachai, on Sept. 29.

The "White Nationalists" Stormfront website, based in West Palm Beach, Florida, linked the Bangkok Post's coverage of the parade and, amid predictable anti-Jewish posts, also discussed the event.

"It really is a shame to see that those who are so racially alien to our own can have a better understanding of our history and greater freedom to explore and express it than we do," said Stormfront forum member Daedalus.

"Even sadder is that they seem to have a keener grasp than even some White Nationalists do. There is much work to be done," Daedalus said.

"The Simon Wiesenthal Center is calling on Thailand's Christian leaders to condemn a Nazi parade at the Sacred Heart Preparatory School in Chiang Mai led by students who participated in a Nazi parade replete with Sieg Heil salutes, Nazi marches, gun-toting adults and even a young person dressed as Adolf Hitler," said the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center.

"The march started on the school grounds and continued into the streets of the adjoining neighborhood," it said in a Sept. 26 statement.

"From the visual evidence, it is clear that this Nazi celebration could not have taken place without the knowledge and cooperation of the school administration," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean at the Jewish human rights organization which offered to provide educational materials to teach the school about "Nazi mass murder."

Swastikas appear throughout the world, but are considered in Thailand as a Hindu symbol, frequently adorning Brahman, Hindu, Buddhist and animist shrines and religious items, including statues of the Buddha.

Originating from the ancient Sanskrit word "svasti" -- which means "well-being" or "all is well" -- it is spoken by Thais several times a day as a greeting and farewell, in their pronunciation of the word as "sawadee".

But this Buddhist-majority Southeast Asian country has a poor education system, resulting in a work force aspiring to be globalized but mostly unable to speak English, and thus limited in understanding the western world.

One consequence is a lack of knowledge among many Thais about Nazis, the Holocaust, and Thailand's links to Germany and Japan during World War II.

On July 14, 1934, for example, Nazi Chancellor Adolf Hitler appeared in an International News Photo saying farewell to Thailand's King Prajadhipok at Templehof Airport in Berlin, while Nazi officers displayed straight-armed salutes.

Two weeks earlier, Hitler had completed a bloody "Night of the Long Knives" purge of his political party, assassinating more than 75 Nazis who he perceived as rivals.

While in Berlin, the king -- also known as Rama VII -- attended a guard of honor comprised of German troops.

Five years later, in 1939, one of Hitler's officials visited the Thai capital and arranged for Germany's Lufthansa airline to begin flying between Bangkok and Berlin.

Such events are rarely, if ever, explained in Thai schools.

There is also no in-depth teaching of Bangkok's World War II agreement to be occupied by Japan, which seized much of Southeast Asia at that time, enabling Thailand to temporarily claim territory from Burma, Laos, Cambodia and Malaya.

The rehabilitation of America's Thai enemies after World War II also left a confusing legacy for some.

Washington blocked demands that Thailand's Prime Minister Phibun Songkhram be put on trial for declaring war against the U.S. and Britain in 1942.

Instead, in 1955, American President Dwight Eisenhower awarded him the Legion of Merit after Mr. Phibun promised Thai troops would fight in the U.S.-led Korean War.

Today, Nazi imagery frequently appears in Thailand on T-shirts, decals, and as motorcycle helmets.

During recent political demonstrations in Bangkok, a succession of rival Thai prime ministers have been portrayed with Hitler-style moustaches painted on their portraits, to show they are dictators.

In 2009, complaints by the Israeli and German embassies resulted in removal of a billboard of Hitler, saluting above a highway near Bangkok and advertising a waxworks museum of famous people.

The billboard's Thai-language headline declared: "Hitler is not dead."

Historians say this country's first synagogue was already established by Jewish merchants in the central city of Ayutthaya in 1601.

In the 1920s, Russian Jews fled to Bangkok from the Soviet Union, joined by 120 German Jews who escaped the Nazis in the 1930s and came here.

Most Jews in Thailand moved away after the Germans and Japanese surrendered.

During the 1950s and 1960s, Jewish residents came from Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Ian, Afghanistan and America.

Israelis mostly began arriving in the 1970s, attracted to Bangkok's gem and jewelry trade, while others sought to advise the Thai government about dry agriculture, security and other issues.

Today, many Jews from Israel and other countries vacation here, and about 300 mostly foreign Jews live in Thailand.

"Almost all of the [foreign resident] Jews are involved in the trading industry, and production of precious jewelry," according to a history by Ariel Scheib.

Richard S Ehrlich is a Bangkok-based journalist who has reported news from Asia since 1978. He is co-author of "Hello My Big Big Honey!", a non-fiction book of investigative journalism. His web page is http://www.asia-correspondent.110mb.com.

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