Replica Nazi flags and badges available at Melbourne gun show

REPLICA Nazi flags, uniforms, badges and pins were for sale at a gun show in Melbourne Altona North today.

Nazi flags at the 89th Melbourne Arms and Militaria Fair in Altona North.

REPLICA Nazi flags, uniforms, badges and pins were for sale at a gun show in Melbourne’s south west today.

Gas masks and miniature Nazi model sets were also available to the thousands that visited the Melbourne Arms and Militaria Fair in Altona North.

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Australia’s peak Jewish body said paraphernalia available at the Westgate Sports and Leisure Complex event indicated growing antisemitism and neo-Nazi behaviour.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry researcher Julie Nathan said the sale of such products was unacceptable.

“It is appalling that some people are willing to profit from the collection or sale of Nazi and Holocaust memorabilia,” she told the Sunday Herald Sun.

“Any Nazi memorabilia being sold in Australia is an insult to the millions who suffered and died under Nazi brutality and genocide.

“It is especially problematic at a time of rising antisemitism from the far right.”

Flags for sale at the fair. Picture: Tamsin Rose

The researcher said 230 antisemetic incidents were recorded in Australia last year and more than more than 50 were perpetrated by a Melbourne-born neo-Nazi group called Antipodean Resistance.

Event organiser Jeff Pannan said not everyone could afford genuine articles and replicas provided an alternative to collectors.

“If they can’t afford the real thing, then there are reproductions and that’s fairly common,” he said.

“If it’s available, it’s available.”

Mr Pannan said the world was in the “grips of too much ‘do-gooderism’” and that people have the right to sell whatever they wanted.

“I know everybody wants to be politically correct at the moment but this world is probably getting too politically correct,” he said.

Nazi model. Picture: Tamsin Rose

“Whether people think it’s good or bad, I think people have the right to do it”

At the same event earlier in the year, the Herald Sun uncovered replica Zyklon B gas canisters for sale.

Chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission Dr Dvir Abramovich said vendors needed to be held accountable.

“I would not be surprised if neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers and white-supremacists are buying such items as a way to celebrate their dangerous ideology and to recruit new members,” he said.

Nazi badges and stickers for sale. Picture: Tamsin Rose

“I call on all dealers to start exercising moral judgment by stopping the sale of these perverse articles.

“Perhaps it’s time that the state and federal governments consider regulating and controlling this reprehensible practice.”

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