A 42-year-old mother from Oxfordshire, England has been exposed by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre (SWC) as the winner of an online "Miss Hitler" beauty pageant, according to a report by British news site and radio station LBC.
The woman, Sarah Mountford, entered the competition, run by the Russian social media site VKontakte, under the pseudonym “Miss Aryan Angel" and was a member of the far-right group Britain First. The site encourages its users to use pseudonyms in the competition.
"He [Hitler] has been dead a long time. I didn't think of the impact his name still has."
Sarah Mountford, 'Miss Aryan Angel'
The online competition aims to promote a "healthy Hitlerian competition," according to the site.
Entrants submit a personal statement as part of the competition. Mountford described herself as a "straight, white, pure-blood female with a longing to return to traditional ways. In accordance with nature. Blood and soil. Ancestors and honor. Our people matter."
Mountford had previously lived in Brighton, moving to the city of Oxford two years ago, the Mail on Sunday reported.
"It was just a bit of fun, really, a spur-of-the-moment thing. I didn't set out to upset anyone. It's not like I'll get a crown – it's more of a poll. I'll try to get it taken down. My views aren't extreme, you hear the same at every bus stop.” ountford told the Mail after her activities were revealed.
She added: "He [Hitler] has been dead a long time. I didn't think of the impact his name still has."
The rise of online neo-Nazism
The SWC's director of global social action, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, said: "This is part of an ongoing effort to whitewash the horrific crimes of Nazism, to rewrite history to legitimize a monster who plunged the world into the darkness and perpetrated a genocide that left six million Jews dead, including 1.5 million children.”
"There should be zero tolerance for this outrageous campaign on any, and all, social media platforms."
This comes after only a year after a previous winner of the competition and her husband were found to have been a part of the now-banned far-right group National Action, an organization banned in Britain for its support of terrorism.
The US-based SWC was founded by Simon Weisenthal in 1977 by the death camp survivor Simon Wiesenthal to expose escaped Nazis and their supporters. Weisenthal himself helped track down over 1,000 Nazis during his lifetime.