Controversy as Shell Set to Use Crane Ship Named After Nazi

[FLPanhandle]

http://www.chem.info/news/2015/02/controversy-shell-set-use-crane-ship-named-after-nazi



The ship is named after convicted Nazi war criminal Pieter Schelte Heerema — which has prompted a chorus of outrage among the Jewish community and others.

Shell said that it supports a change in the name, but that the ship’s owner — Swiss-based group Allseas Group SA, a pipelayer for the oil and gas industry — has so far refused

The $1.7 billion vessel has been massively controversial since its name became widely known in 2008, and it had ignited further controversy when it arrived in Rotterdam from the Korean Daewoo shipyards on January 24. But before Friday, it was unknown who would first be utilizing the world’s largest crane vessel.

The ship is named after the late father of Edward Heerema, Allseas’ Dutch president. Pieter Schelte Heerema was a convicted war criminal who served in the Waffen-SS alongside then-medical officer Josef Mengele. Pieter Schelte returned to the Netherlands from Venezuela after the country was occupied by Germany, where he had a successful career in the SS, was involved in setting up slave labor operations and called the “Jewish race… parasitic.”



Note: Naming a ship after your dearly departed father is nice gesture. However, if dad was a convicted Nazi war criminal, maybe naming after mom would have been the better strategy.

[deaniac21]

1. It is being rechristened Leon Uris, i think.