A few years ago, I happened to visit Buchenwald, one of the Nazis' more notorious concentration camps in Germany (near Weimar). I remember they did have a small gift shop. As best I can recall, the shop consisted of documentary books about the camp. I purchased one while I was there.
Today I watched a report on Fox News about the new 9-11 Museum gift shop and the complaints coming in about the tackiness of some of the souvenir items, like t-shirts, hoodies, earrings, baseball caps and coffee mugs. I have to agree with those complaints. I may be in error, but I do not recall anything of the sort being sold at Buchenwald, and I certainly never would have purchased such items at such a consecrated place.
http://nypost.com/2014/05/18/outrage-over-911-museum-gift-shops-crass-souvenirs/
If you want to view more of what is being sold at this store, check out the below Daily Mail (UK) article.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2632553/Pictured-The-tasteless-toy-rescue-dogs-baseball-caps-glass-ornament-Twin-Towers-buy-9-11-Memorial-Museum-gift-shop.html
We are not talking about sports memorabilia here. This is not the Dodger Stadium gift shop. To me, to sell such items at a 9-11 memorial site is beyond tacky. It trivializes the dead and their survivors. I realize that there must be a source of revenue to keep the shop in operation, but couldn't they limit their merchandise to books or items of a true historical and educational nature?
The sheer tackiness of this shop is beyond belief. I hope nobody buys anything in this place.
To be really tacky "My uncle died rescuing people from the Twin Towers, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt."
ReplyDeleteYeah, that's horrible. They probably aren't being quite so insensitive, but souvenir news video compilations on DVD is about as far as I would go. (For all you Francophobes and UC Santa Cruz community studies majors, souvenir is French for "to remember," not "cute t shirt.")