A billboard that displayed an Adolf Hitler quote has been taken down in Alabama after the message raised eyebrows and sparked a firestorm of complaints on social media.
The signage, posted Friday by Life Savers Ministries in Auburn, features a picture of children with the quote, "He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future."
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The line is from one of the Hitler's 1930 speeches and has historically been tied to
Nazi youth groups, according to the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer. On the billboard, it was coupled with a Bible verse from Proverbs — "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it" — and was reportedly meant to serve as an ad for the ministry's Big Brothers/Big Sisters-esque program.
But the billboard only lasted the weekend and, by Tuesday, public backlash had become so intense that Life Savers agreed to take it down.
"We are pulling the billboard and certainly never intended to cause confusion . . . Herbert Hoover would have been a far better one to quote when he said, 'Children are our most valuable resource,'" founder James Anderegg told the Ledger-Enquirer. "We are a children’s organization and had honorable intentions and nothing less."
JCPenney found itself in a similar situation last year when California residents realized that one of the store's billboards for a tea kettle resembled the Nazi leader.
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