I was just watching the movie "Zone of Interest." There is a quick scene with a man (I think it's the actor playing Rudolf Hoess, the commandant of Auschwitz) standing in a white background, smoke rising, and screams and yells behind him. On his uniform collar is a Totenkopf patch, looking very much like the Totenkopf patch that Graham Platner had tattooed on him in Croatia in 2007.
Here's a clip from a video of Platner's wedding, showing the tattoo on his chest:
And here's the clip from the movie:
At the Oscars in 2024, the film's editor, Jonathan Glazer, said: "Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people." He also said: "Whether the victims of October 7th in Israel, or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanisation, how do we resist?"
I'm sure that many of those who applauded Glazer's remarks in 2024 (because they were critical of Israel - although notice he also mentioned the victims of October 7) now fail to make the connection between the death's head symbol that Hoess (and other members of the SS) wore on their collars, and the tattoo that Platner wore (until he had it covered over). Because they agree with his politics, they are willing to accept Platner's claim that he didn't know until recently that the source of the tattoo was a Nazi symbol.
It seems appalling to me that someone who was an American soldier wore a Nazi tattoo. How many American soldiers died at the hands of the German Army in World War II? Wikipedia (based on American military records) says about 250,000 American troops died in the European theater of World War II. Doesn't he have any respect for the other American soldiers who gave their lives for the United States in that war?
