Romanian mayor criticized for dressing up as NaziBy DAN MIHAESCU (AP) – 2 hours agoCONSTANTA, Romania — An anti-Semitism monitoring organization in Romania has filed an official complaint with prosecutors against a mayor for taking part in a fashion show dressed as a Nazi officer and wearing a swastika.Radu Mazare, the mayor of Constanta city, is no stranger to showmanship. He once appeared at a public event dressed as James Bond, and he has done fashion magazine spreads.Mazare, a member of the opposition Social Democracy Party, also was charged last year, along with 36 other government officials, with carrying out illegal real estate deals that cost the country 114 million euros ($143 million).On Sunday evening, Mazare, 41, and his 15-year-old son performed on stage at the fashion show in Mamaia, a Black Sea resort town near Constanta, and both appeared to be dressed in Nazi uniforms.Television news shows later showed footage of the performance in Romania, where it is illegal to display swastikas and where people convicted of doing that can be jailed for three years.The newspaper Evenimentul Zilei quoted the mayor as saying he was inspired to dress the way he did by the film "Valkyrie," in which a German officer "tries to free Germany of a mad dictator." Actor Tom Cruise plays Col. Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg, the aristocratic army officer who was among those executed after a failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler in July 1944.Mazare told TV station B1 that he thought he had covered up all the Nazi symbols on his uniform, but did not see a swastika on the belt because it was very small.
Mazare told TV station B1 that he thought he had covered up all the Nazi symbols on his uniform, but did not see a swastika on the belt because it was very small.
