Advertisement

Anne Frank outfit removed from Halloween costume website after provoking outcry

The Anne Frank outfit has been removed from websites following a outcry - AFP/Halloweencostumes.eu
The Anne Frank outfit has been removed from websites following a outcry - AFP/Halloweencostumes.eu

A costume of Anne Frank has been removed from websites, including one for Halloween fancy dress, after Holocaust survivors families reacted with horror.

The outfit, which was marketed as “Anne Frank costume for girls” on sites including Halloweencostumes.eu,  included a blue overcoat, green beret, brown satchel and brown paper name tag.

The same costume - made by British costume company Smiffy's - was also available on Amazon under 'World War II Evacuee Girl Costume", for £10. 

The company which owns Halloweencostumes.eu, Fun.com, said it has withdrawn the costume from its websites and apologised for any offence caused.

But horrified Twitter users condemned the outfit, describing it as "inappropriate" and "offensive".

Anne Frank became a symbol of resilience and hope amid the Holocaust after the diary she kept while hiding from the Nazis was posthumously published.

Born in June 1929, she fled Frankfurt for Amsterdam with her father Otto, mother Edith and sister Margot, as the Nazis rose to power in Germany.

However the Netherlands fell to Hitler’s forces in 1940 and in 1942 Otto took the family into hiding in an annex in his firm’s offices.

The family lived in the cramped annex with others fleeing the Nazis for two years while Anne chronicled their life in hiding in her diary.

Anne Frank costume Halloween - Credit: AFP
Anne Frank in hiding in Amsterdam Credit: AFP

The hideout was betrayed in August 1944 and the Franks were sent to the notorious Auschwitz camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. Anne died of typhus aged 15 in the Bergen-Belsen camp, just months before the end of the war. Her father Otto was the only family member to survive the conflict.

Holocaust memorial groups and survivors said linking Anne Frank to a Halloween costume was "very distressing."

Lilian Black is the chair of the Leeds-based Holocaust Survivors' Friendship Association (HSFA) and her father Eugene Black was liberated from Bergen-Belsen, the same camp in which Anne Frank died aged 15.

She said: "There have been a number of these costumes being created for Halloween. I do not know where people are in their heads to think that the Holocaust is something that's amusing.

"I just cannot grasp how this sort of thing happens, but it does and it does frequently. There is nothing funny about this at all."

Anne Frank Halloween costumes  - Credit: halloweencostumes.eu
The Anne Frank costume on halloweencostumes.eu Credit: halloweencostumes.eu

A spokesman for Fun.co.uk apologised for the Anne Frank costume and said the company sold a number of historical themed outfits.

He added: “We offer several types of historically accurate costumes - from prominent figures to political figures, to television characters.

“We take feedback from customers very seriously. We have passed the feedback along regarding this costume and it has been removed from the website at this time. We apologise for any offence it has caused, as that was never our intention.”