of the yellow badge, was subsequently featured prominently on the flag of Israel. Conversely, symbols intended to have positive connotations can have unintended consequences. After World War I, the U.S. War Department awarded gold chevrons to soldiers serving in the combat zones in Europe. The silver chevrons awarded for honorable domestic service in support of the war effort were instead considered a badge of shame by many recipients. In April 1945 the government of Czechoslovakia ordered the expropriation, denaturalisation and ensuing deportation of all Czechoslovaks of Magyar or German native language. In May 1945 Czechoslovaks of German native language had to wear white or yellow armbands with a capital N, for Němec (German), printed on. The armbands were to be worn on the outside clothes until finally, the government had deported all its citizens of German native language, by 1947. More recently, in 2007, the Bangkok, Thailand police switched to punitive pink armbands adorned with the cute Hello Kitty cartoon character when the tartan armbands that had been intended to be worn as a badge of shame for minor infractions were instead treated as collectibles by offending officers forced to wear them, creating a perverse incentive. The revised scheme, however, was also soon abandoned. Fictional works In Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic 1850 romance novel The Scarlet Letter, set in 17th century Puritan Boston, the lead character Hester Prynne is led from the town prison with the scarlet letter "A" on her breast. The scarlet letter "A" represents the act of adultery that she had committed and it is to be a symbol of her sin for all to see. Originally intended as a badge of shame, it would later take on different meanings as her fictional life progressed in the story. The 1916 silent film The Yellow Passport, starring Clara Kimball Young, was also known as The Badge of Shame when it was reissued in 1917. In the 2006 film, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander) is seen using as a fireplace poker, a branding iron with the letter "P" that he used to impart the "pirate's brand" seen on the right forearm of Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp). According to the backstory, Sparrow was branded a pirate by Beckett for refusing to transport slaves for the East India Trading Company. In the film Inglourious Basterds the protagonists carve swastikas into the foreheads of surviving