Bizarre News

No 'Adolf Hitler' on birthday cake, store insists

Dec 18, 2008, 8:07 GMT

Washington - A store in the United States has defended a decision rejecting a request from a father to inscribe his son's name, Adolf Hitler, on a birthday cake. The ShopRite store in Phillipsburg, New Jersey, said it reserves the right to refuse to provide inappropriate services, Karen Meleta, the spokeswoman for the chain of stores, said Wednesday. 'We have a sensibility about what we believe is appropriate and what we believe is inappropriate,' Meletta told Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa. 'We have standards and principles by which we decorate and we were exercising them.' Heath Campbell, the 35-year-old father of the boy, in the two previous years had also been turned down by the store for similar requests. On those occasions, he also asked for a swastika on the cake, Meletta said. Campbell, of Holland Township, Pennsylvania, named his son Adolf Hitler Campbell, and the child was celebrating his third birthday on Sunday. His two other children, daughters, are named JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell, an apparent reference to the head of the Nazi SS, Heinrich Himmler. The Campbells told the Easton Express Times that they eventually got the cake from Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, which has obliged the request. 'Our number one priority in decorating cakes is to serve the customer to the best of our ability,' Wal-Mart spokeswoman Anna Taylor told the newspaper, adding the stores respect the views of all of their customers. Campbell said to the newspaper that he is not racist but believes all races should he kept separated. He also said he will permit his children to develop their own views on race as they grow up. 'They're just names, you know,' he said. 'Yeah, the 'Nazis' were bad people back then. But my kids are little. They're not going to grow up like that.'