Nazi-themed party held at Minneapolis restaurant on Martin Luther King Day

theGRIO REPORT - Photos have surfaced from a deeply offensive display at a Minneapolis restaurant from this past January...

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Photos have surfaced from a deeply offensive display at a Minneapolis restaurant from this past January.

A Nazi-themed “party,” complete with flags and military costumes, was reportedly held at Gasthof Zur Gemutlichkeit on Martin Luther King Day.

Jon Boorom, one of the attendees and a member of WWII Historical Re-enactment Society Inc. defended the event in an interview with the local City Pages.

“All of the German [re-enactment] groups in Minnesota have a Christmas party because we don’t typically have events going on in the winter,” said Boorom. “It’s just like any club that has a party. Because they dress up like Germans from World War II, it’s cool to go to a German restaurant, eat German food, and drink German beer.”

Mario Pierzchalski, the owner of the establishment, told the Star Tribune he didn’t see what the fuss was all about since the participants were  “actors” and “peaceful people.”

“So now we have a lot of bad messages on our phones; they want to burn down the building,” he told the Star Tribune. “We live in a free country…but from the comments I see, a lot of people they don’t see what freedom is. If I break the law, punish me. But we did this for so many years and everything was fine.”

“If you wear a German uniform or a Nazi uniform, it’s not like you’re saying, ‘I think Hitler was super cool’ or ‘I hate Jews’ or ‘I hate gays’ or ‘I hate democrats,'” Boorom added. “You’re not there because you believe in what Hitler stood for — you’re there to educate people about history, and a lot of that is so people don’t forget. It’s the same as wanting to be the bad guy when you’re playing cowboys and Indians. There’s an attraction to the bad side.”

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