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A customer of a Shell gas station in Fort Lauderdale was surprised when in the station store he saw between the stock of face masks , one with a swastika, the Nazi symbol.
“After the initial shock -horror- I asked the woman behind the counter:” Is Shell really selling face masks with swastikas? “The customer said with surprise to a chain local television.
Apparently the store manager answered affirmatively without seeming to be aware of what exactly he was selling . In fact, he does not know how many face masks he sold because he never really recognized what it was about.
In Local 10, a local chain asked the rabbi of the Jewish Federation of Broward about it, Arnie Samlan, and he was “deeply offended by this type of act.”
Shell station manager Mohammad Hossin said having bought the masks from a small merchant who showed up at the store to offer an order with various models of masks . The manager had no idea that they were offensive symbols.
But the seller could not know details, as there was no receipt or anything to identify it. For his part, client Kelly Wagner said: in these times there was no room for this kind of ignorance. ”
For its part, the Shell company, rejected this type of act and said of course that it does not agree, nor does it approve symbols of hate ”. And he assured that he contacted the dealer to have this article withdrawn from sale, and emphasized that these cases of discrimination were taken very seriously.
Shell emphasized that its business throughout the United States is to supply fuel , but the store in gas stations are the responsibility of whoever has the concession or who operates the site.
Unfortunately, this type of event is not the first time that it has happened in the United States. Together, in the middle of 2020 at a Walmart store in Minnesota a couple entered with their faces covered with a red handkerchief that revealed a black swastika. And a client, in addition to German origin, recorded them and the video went viral on networks.
In this case, the couple wanted to call the attention and make a call not to vote for the current president Joe Biden. The situation caused an altercation with the other clients and the police had to go, and in the end the couple in question was expelled from the premises and prohibited from returning.