Umbro to rename ‘holocaust’ trainer internationally
Umbro, the sportswear manufacturer, has apologised for using the name ‘Zyklon’- the gas used by the Nazis in the death camps during World War II- for a line of its running shoes launched in 1999. Currently, it has removed the name from the product in the UK only.
The move comes after protests from Jewish groups which condemned Umbro for "appalling insensitivity".
Dr Shimon Samuels, of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, the international Jewish human rights organisation, said in a letter to Umbro that its "outrageous misuse of the Holocaust is an insult to its victims and survivors". He castigated Umbro and its product for potentially encouraging neo-Nazi violence on football terraces.
Dr Stephen Smith, the co-founder of the Beth Shalom Holocaust Centre in Nottinghamshire, said: "Commercial appropriation of words carrying connotations of mass murder is utterly unacceptable.
Fiona Macaulay, a spokeswoman for the Board of Deputies of British Jews said: "The original marketing decision to name the shoe is appallingly insensitive to the six million Jewish and five million non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust.
A spokesman for Umbro said: "The naming of the shoe is purely coincidental and was not intended to communicate any connotations. The renaming process is now underway outside the UK."
