K-pop star Sowon criticised for posing with Nazi uniform mannequin - The Jewish Chronicle

Fans have demanded an apology from a K-pop star who was seen embracing a Nazi mannequin in a set of photos. Sowon, a member of popular girl group GFriend, came under fire after sharing the images with her 816,000 Instagram followers. A Jewish GFriend fan took to Twitter to express their view on the now-deleted pictures, taken in a café during a video shoot. The fan wrote: "I’m disappointed of S0won but I’m glad she deleted..she needs to apologise tho..Nazis are not friends or someone you can hug or look so lovingly at, they are killers, they killed 6 million Jews out of them 1.5 million Jewish children /srs. “Btw I am Jewish with a family history involving the Holocaust so don’t think I don’t have things to say about it.” The fan also encouraged others to write to Sowon with the message: “Sowon please, I’m begging, officially apologise for those pictures. “You have Jewish fans, we love you and we need an answer. Please delete the photo is not enough. I hope you understand.” The comments were retweeted over 28,000 times, sparking debate and outcry from fans for Sowon to apologise and an email campaign to GFriend’s record company, Source Music. Some suggested the pop star might have simply been ignorant to what the full-sized mannequin, dressed in full Nazi uniform, represented. But others disagreed, with one person tweeting: “I do NOT want to see "well Sowon maybe didn’t know’ or ‘Koreans do not know about this topic. “There is no excuse for a woman born in 1995 not to know what happened or what the uniform symbolised.” A statement released by Source music this morning and translated by fans read: “During the on-site check day of filming, the department in charge did not recognise that there was a problem with the mannequin’s outfit… “In the process of uploading the behind-the-scenes video and photos, we went through internal inspection and discussion but we uploaded without knowing all the problematic parts. “We apologise…for not paying close attention to historical facts and social issues. “We bow our heads and apologise to those who have felt uncomfortable with these videos and photos. “The artist herself recognised the meaning of the picture, was very surprised, and immediately deleted the picture. “She felt deeply responsible for uploading such pictures and felt heartbroken.”