A man who wore a Hitler costume for Halloween was fired by the Madison Children’s Museum.
The museum said that the man, who wore the costume of Adolf Hitler during Halloween weekend, told them that he wore the costume on a street near the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus on Saturday to mock the Nazi leader, the Associated Press reported.
The museum terminated his employment on Tuesday night, responding to a torrent of social media complaints and coverage by news outlets in the United States and Israel.
The man was fired because the museum "determined that his continued employment would create an environment at odds with our values and unwelcoming to visitors and staff,” the Madison Children’s Museum said in a statement.
The museum added that the man had a cognitive disability from a traumatic brain injury and that he had worked under supervision during his decade working there.
"It is our understanding that he believed his costume to be mocking Hitler," the museum said.
While the Madison Police Department described the man’s costume as “offensive and reprehensible,” they stated that wearing it was not a criminal act.
The man’s costume was denounced by the StopAntisemtism organization, who pointed out that it came at a time of a rise in antisemitic attacks against American Jews.
“We are nauseated to see a man has dressed up as Adolf Hitler to celebrate Halloween at the U. Wisconsin Madison,” they said on Twitter. “With antisemitic incidents on the rise at both this particular school and across the country, this costume was meant to do one thing, and one thing only – spread hate.”