Prince Harry rules out Auschwitz visit

LONDON - Prince Harry has ruled out visiting Auschwitz as atonement for wearing a Nazi uniform at a party just two weeks before the 60th anniversary of the death camp's liberation.

Jewish groups had demanded the Queen's 20-year-old grandson make the symbolic gesture as a way of apologising for wearing a swastika armband and an army shirt with Nazi regalia at a costume party on Saturday.

The prince has apologised for his "mistake" but Jewish rights groups and politicians said he should do more.

"This was a shameful act displaying insensitivity for the victims, not just for those soldiers of his own country who gave their lives to defeat Nazism but to the victims of the Holocaust ..." said Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the U.S.-based Simon Wiesenthal Centre.

He added in a statement: "We strongly urge Prince Harry to accompany the British delegation on January 27th to the Auschwitz death camp to commemorate 60 years since liberation. There he will see the results of the hated symbol he so foolishly and brazenly chose to wear."

A royal official said he understood the calls for the prince to go to Auschwitz but there were no plans for him to attend any of the ceremonies.

"It would be a distraction and a detraction from the importance of the occasion because it would become a different story in media terms," the official told Reuters.

"He recognises he made a very bad mistake and he apologises for that. There are no plans for him to say anything more."

The Nazis murdered six million Jews and millions of others including Poles, homosexuals, Soviet prisoners and Gypsies. Millions more were imprisoned or forced to work as slaves.

Photographs of the younger son of the late Princess Diana and Prince Charles in Nazi attire appeared in the Sun, in Israeli papers and on websites around the world.

Harry, third in line to the throne, said in a statement he was sorry if he had caused any offence. "It was a poor choice of costume and I apologise," he said.

"INTOLERABLE"

Prime Minister Tony Blair said: "Prince Harry has made it clear he is very sorry about it and I think the rest of it is best to leave to Buckingham Palace."

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom was less sympathetic, saying the use of Nazi symbols was intolerable.

"I think anybody who tries to pass it off as bad taste must be made aware that this can encourage others to think that perhaps that period was not as bad as we teach the young generation in the free world," he told reporters.

Conservative leader Michael Howard, who is Jewish, told BBC Radio: "It would be appropriate if we heard from him in person about how contrite he is."

Royal commentator Robert Lacey said he was just "a messed up kid" and should be left alone. "He clearly got it wrong. It is a very fine line and Harry stepped over it. But he has apologised and we have to move on," he told Reuters.

Former armed forces minister Doug Henderson was quoted as saying the picture showed Harry was "not suitable" for the army.

Harry, who is due to train at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst this year, is known as a royal "wild child" and has admitted smoking cannabis and under-age drinking.

Harry was left alone by the media for several years after the death of his mother in a Paris car crash in 1997, but has come in for criticism in the last few months. Last October, he scuffled with photographers outside a London nightclub.

- REUTERS