“Such a postcard could be seen as promoting Nazi ideology,” the man, who was on holiday in Guernsey, said.
“Amidst all the picturesque views of Guernsey on the postcards for sale, it seems odd to send one which symbolises an evil regime, especially as the island was occupied by Nazi Germany during the war. Three Jews were deported from Guernsey and died at Auschwitz.”
Paper Box owner Philip Morgan defended his decision to sell the cards.
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Speaking to the JC, Morgan said: "I have had a tremendous amount of support for [the postcards] because it is a very personal thing over here – the fact that Guernsey was occupied during the war [and] the postcard is about the occupation.
“It clearly shows it is all part of the occupation experience. It brings to mind that Guernsey people suffered a lot under the Nazis, just like the Jewish people did... perhaps not as much.”
Morgan said he had never received an “official complaint” about the postcards, but noted that visitors to his shop had periodically destroyed some of the cards.
“I've never had people complaining... I’ve had people vandalising them or turning them over, some tear them up, some throw them in the bin.”
But, he added, “this has happened less than a dozen times in 25 years.”
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He said “lots of Jewish visitors” had never raised an issue about the symbol and suggested that the Jewish man who complained might have been a “plant”.
Morgan went on to state he had “never thought about” the Nazi symbol on the card. “It is a thing that is up for sale, it does not cause offence.”
Morgan told the local paper, the Guernsey Press, that he had “bought the entire stock of cards up years ago” and called them his “vintage collection”.
“We’ve had German customers in and they don’t bat an eyelid. It’s just that some people are particularly sensitive about it,” he said.
Despite the controversy over the postcards, Morgan would continue selling them.
The owner of the German Occupation Museum, Richard Heaume, told the Guernsey Press that his museum no longer sells the cards.
