Wiesenthal Center urges Prince Harry to go to Aushwitz to atone

AP Wire | 01/13/2005: "Being the son of Princess Diana buys some sympathy, but not enough to get away with wearing a Nazi uniform. So Prince Harry is learning, to immense royal embarrassment, after his party costume provoked outrage from Jewish groups and politicians. The Simon Wiesenthal Center urged the wayward 20-year-old to go to Auschwitz to atone; the leader of the opposition Conservative Party demanded a public apology, and another lawmaker wanted Harry barred from the army.

"What Harry did was both stupid and evil," said Lord Janner, a senior figure in Britain's Jewish community. "The time has come for him to make a public apology." Harry made his first apology Wednesday night, just as The Sun newspaper's first edition was hitting the streets with a big headline - HARRY THE NAZI - and a picture of the young royal wearing a swastika armband.

The picture was snapped by a guest at a costume party on Saturday, and apparently sold to The Sun. "It was a poor choice of costume and I apologize," Harry said in a statement issued through the office of his father, Prince Charles. Prince William reportedly was costumed as a leopard and lion for the "native and colonial" theme party at the home of Richard Meade, who won three gold medals in equestrian events at the 1968 and 1972 Olympics. One unidentified woman in the photo was dressed as an American Indian, while another was attired as a European peasant. A man wore what appeared to be an Arab headdress.

In October, Harry got into a fist-fight with a photographer outside a nightclub. Before that, a former art teacher at Eton claimed she had helped Harry cheat on an exam - a charge rejected by a tribunal. And in 2002, Charles made Harry spend a day at a drug rehabilitation center after he was caught smoking marijuana and indulging in underage drinking. Charles himself has served his time as most disgraceful royal; so has Harry's outspoken grandfather Prince Philip, his uncles Prince Andrew and Prince Edward and their wives, and his aunt, Princess Anne.

But none made the mistake of trampling on sensitivities about World War II and the Holocaust, still vivid issues in Britain even as audiences roar at dancing Nazis in Mel Brooks' musical version of "The Producers" in London's West End. Harry's grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, will mark the day by holding a reception at St. James' Palace for death camp survivors and some of the British soldiers who liberated them."