S. Korean Nazi spots draw protest

SEOUL, South Korea -- A South Korean bar and a pool hall that display Nazi symbols have drawn protests from a prominent Jewish human rights group based in Los Angeles.

The "Hitler Techno Bar and Cocktail Show," located in a main shopping and entertainment area in the southern port city of Pusan, displays photographs of Adolf Hitler as well as a flag, napkins and matchboxes with the swastika symbol.

The "Gestapo" pool hall is in a suburb of Taegu, southeast of Seoul and has similar decor, the Simon Wiesenthal center said. It demanded "intervention by the (South Korean) government in this matter."

The Simon Wiesenthal Center said Monday that it sent a protest letter notifying Yang Sung-chul, South Korea's ambassador to the United States, of the nightspots.

The government will explain the sensitivity of the issue to the establishment owners, who are likely using Nazi-theme decor purely for commercial reasons, said Kim Euy-taek a Foreign Ministry spokesman.

"I think it's nothing to do with any ideological leanings," Kim said Tuesday.

A year ago, a Seoul bar removed its Nazi-theme decor under government pressure after complaints from the Wiesenthal center and the German and Israeli embassies. Similar protests forced a South Korean bakery to pull a television commercial using a model imitating Hitler.

At the time, the bar and bakery owners said they were using the Nazi theme merely as an attention-grabber. Local media then lamented the lack of understanding by South Koreans of Nazi atrocities during World War II.

"We were told then that many people in South Korea do not have a full understanding of the horrific genocide inflicted by Hitler and his supporters on the Jewish people," wrote Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal center.

He noted that Nazi Germany was a key ally of Imperial Japan, which inflicted great suffering as a colonial power on the Korean Peninsula.

Many South Koreans can explain in great detail how their ancestors suffered under Japanese rule from 1910-1945, but they have little knowledge of the Holocaust.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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