I found myself mystiriously smiling the other night as I watched this video posted by Jewlicious. At the same time I found myself extremely pissed off, I mean, shouldn’t Auschwitz be more then a music video? Apparently I am not the only one – I guess there are raging debates everywhere about whether or not we should keep the camps serious, or open them up to happiness. Although whenever I watch Sarah Silverman do Holocuast humor I find myself cracking up.
Now seriously folks, does this piss you off or do you think of it as a kick in the Nazi face?
A little bit of column A, a little bit of column B.
It’s bad. Although we can all agree with the sentiment of the video, this is an ill-conceived way to get the point across. It goes a long way to trivialize what happened at Auschwitz.
I personally enjoyed it. I think it is a big “kick in the Nazi Face,” to not only survive the holocaust, but to go back and say: “Ha, I’m not only alive, but I’m thriving, I’m not hiding and scared, but vibrant and flourishing”
I think this is great! Apart from the whole “music during the three weeks” <– re past post.
This is beautiful because you have those that survived with the life that they gave birth to, which I think is just awesome!!! The song is appropriate, as tragic as the holocaust is, they survived, didn't give up, and moved on to become givers.
To all the critics out there, I can only repeat my grandmother's words, during a sheva-brachos: "I couldn't understand the holocaust, the concentration camp, seeing my mother and sisters murdered, but now it makes sense, now I see it, now I understand".
I think this is horrifically sick. I found myself doing the nervous laugh thing, too. But I just don’t understand why everyone (I use the term loosely) thinks the Holocaust is a %@&$ing joke. Frankly, I see this concept (couldn’t watch the video) as fairly similar to Fiddler On The Roof. The real Holocaust wasn’t about bunch of caricatured shtetl bumpkin frummies singing and dancing their way into the gas chambers. That just never happened. And I think to fictionalize it as such is unconscionable.
I don’t think the video meant to display them “singing and dancing” into the gas chambers, but rather show that the Nazi’s failed, and the survivors are now full of the vibrancy of life. I take the holocaust very seriously, and don’t think it’s a joke at all. Had there not been a survivor taking part in this video, I might feel differently about it. I just really don’t see it as trivializing the holocaust. The song for crying out loud is about over coming adversity…I think that’s the point of the video.
It’s distasteful out of context but it seems he came back with his grandchildren. Those were a SURVIVORS GRANDCHILDREN! The triumph he must’ve felt, the exhilirating joy at coming back with his victory….ah wish I was there!
True, but it would have been more tasetful to have given it a more artistic treatment with better production quality or not done at all, because this is too sensitive of a subject for anything less. Certainly you would want to see more than corny and synchronized dancing.
maybe. but when you think about the fact it may have been a grandpa and his brood coming to celebrate and dance around for a bit who r we to judge- whatever makes him happy is good.
I think the seriousness of the Auschwitz camp overtakes the dancing in this video. It must take a lot of strength for a group of Jews to walk through that place and actually feel like celebrating their victory over the Nazis. The grandfather probably came up with the idea, he probably felt like giving the Nazis a good kick in the face.
i must say that this is both nauseating and disturbing at the same time. The Holocaust was pure horror and nothing else. Anything that brings lightness and triviality (in any way, even with good intentions) will only cause chinks in the wall that is the horror that was the Holocaust. Besides that fact that the imagery early on of them removing their head coverings along side the words, “I learned how to carry on”, is indicative of how, many of our people came to the conclusion that in order to “get along” Judaism must make certain compromises. And today we are seeing just how well those compromises are paying off.
at 3:03 the old guy does the rubber knees.
I broke out in tears when first started viewing the video. It seemed inappropriate to participate in any sort of levity in such a tragic location. Having said that, I always shep naches in anything that gives hitler (sic) and the nazis (sic) ,yemach shemom an F@%& you. It would have been in terrible taste without the survivor zeide taking part.
I don’t get what the big deal is with this video. As the son of a survivor who recently went back with my father, I just see this as a cute way to celebrate a really emotional visit. There’s nothing in the video that insults the memory of those who were killed.
5,000 years of tradition and we Jewish men still can’t dance!
I thought the vid was heartwarming. What a zechut to go back with three generations of family and give history a kick in the butt. We will survive!
I would have felt differently if the video did not include a survivor (and his family). It is not for me or anyone else to judge how the survivors deal with it. Kudos to this brave man for going back and giving the nazis the finger in whatever way he wanted to.
I agree, Nora. I think the man was terribly brave even to face going back to such an awful place, much less to go back and dance. I would have felt very differently if he had not participated in the video himself.
Akiva: You are reading too much into removing the head coverings. I saw it as coming out of hiding and fear. Jews were killed for having so called ” jewish blood” in their veins , not for being religious or wearing head coverings and probably as many if not more non-orthodox jews were killed as orthodox.
I find this video so wrong.
Dancing on peoples graves is not the way to honor them, regardless of your intentions.
Has anyone gone to Youtube proper and checked out Jane Korman’s channel? This video has a context within her family. She says, “Growing up, I was always present while my parents danced. As an adult, it seemed a natural process to merge the two influences that have shaped my life that of my parents’ story and that of dance hence the project, Dancing Auschwitz.” I broke into tears after watching both videos – imagine the horrors that her parents suffered and yet, they did not lose the ability to spontaneously express themselves joyously through dance. If a Holocaust survivor can still dance, there is hope for the rest of us. This video is an affirmation of life, not an act of desecration.
I agree with Lizardqueen. I first saw the videos and was appalled, then watched, and I got it. Still, I was ambivalent, watching people dance at was is in actuality the largest Jewish cemetery in history! So I went to Youtube, and watched the video again, read the info giving context, and watched the other videos in the series as well (total of 3). This is extremely moving and well done. I can’t get the images of this family dancing in the forest out of my head, and the song was beautifully haunting. Very moving, and though it has music, somehow I felt it was not inappropriate to watch during the 9 days (though of course, I am no LOR, just a rebebetzin, so don’t take his as a psak or quote me as a haskama!)
I can’t think of a more appropriate location for such tragically bad dancing…
Seriously, I get the whole celebrating survival in Hitler’s backyard thing, but IMHO dancing literally on peoples’ graves is a bit much.
First off, contrary to another post here, the Nazi’s did not fail. They kicked the crap out of our people, eliminating our nation from entire sections of the globe.
Second, while I do appreciate what they are trying to accomplish in this video, I got a much ‘better’ feeling seeing Israeli F16 Jets flying over Auschwitz.
A million babies were slaughtered in these camps. Dont go there and dance to Gloria Gaynor…
The Nazis failed in that their goals of global dominion and worldwide elimination of us untermentchen were not met. They certainly did strike a blow but we’re still here and they’re not.
People are WAY too sensitive. They are trying to make a point so stop whining!!
wait a second here…@Azraa… If your baby was brutally murdered in a local park, would you then go and bring a video camera to the spot where YOUR CHILD was murdered and create a dance video?
It just doesnt add up. It also shows the lack of emotion that modern day Jews feel towards the absolute horrors of the holocaust.
We dont have to LIVE in the past but we must appreciate the depth of horror that occured and treat it with respect.
If a person wants to say F U to the Nazi’s, then post a video of you, in Poland or Germany, pissing on a picture of Uncle Adolf.
Awful.
Future Druggie, why? I am not interrogating or judging in any way, but I am curious. Please explain why you have such a strongly negative reaction to the video.
Don’t like it. Funny and entertaining does not always equal appropriate. But obviously they disagree.
The video is wrong, it is sick, and it is disgraceful,
for one simple basic reason: They do the singing
and dancing at the site where so many others
did NOT survive!
This would have worked, and would have been the
beautiful tribute to survival some of you think it is,
IF they had done the singing and dancing ANYWHERE
ELSE on the planet earth (e.g. where the guy moved to
after liberation, where his kids live, etc.).
If you disagree still, try to imagine how those survivors
whose babies, children, wives, etc. were murdered here
would feel while watching this guy DANCING at the site of
murder and singing “I survived!”.
The lack of respect for the dead (let alone, murdered) AT THEIR GRAVESITE, is mindboggling.
Again, the idea of singing that song is fine to celebrate his survival , but you don’t do it in the place where so many others didn’t survive!
If he HAD TO have some holocaust connection to “stick it to
the Nazis”, he should have done it at a place like Hitler’s house in Austria, or some Nazi command post. People could then debate
the appropriatness, but at least it would be debatable.
This is unequivocable wrong, unless you think its OK to
hold parties in graveyards, next to decaying corpses,
because YOU escaped death at some point.
Heshy Fried – Neo-Nazi Holocaust deniers will use this video to berate Jews (“look how little the Jew cares about Aushwitz victims”),
please count this as one vote to take this video down, and not be
a party to spreading it around the world. Think about it.
Thanks.
Right on, Phil
I just showed this video to my Mom to get her take on it. She was kind of taken aback and had to think about it for a long while.
Then she said, “If Jews survived the Holocaust just to be bitter and sad, then the Nazis won. If people can say, we not only survived, but survived and have joy in our lives then the Nazis lost.”
She also said “I think the Grandpa’s cool to dance! I love that!” :^)
I hate this video and I think they should be scolded for having such lack of pity for those that had their kinder thrown into the air and shot with machine guns. I think there is a reason we tuck our Tzitis in at a grave site, we do not boast to the dead that we can are alive and can fulfill our mitztvos.. I think this is the disconnect that modern jewry has with the Shoah, and it is sick man, really the holocaust really was terrible..
I personally hate Shoah memorials, I think it is a Shonda really to even have them. Like some dreary Monument can make up for the holocaust, Like Guided tours in Aushwitz can replicate the terror, lonelyness or sadness one day there was like. They are nothing more than the equivalent of a haunted house or scary movie…
It is my opinion that they should bulldoze all the concentration camps, and stop using them as amusement parks- selling t shirts and hot dogs and beer. I swear if they put a tram in Auschwitz I will blow it up myself. I say F*ck Aushwitz man I say F*ck that place. Burn that edifice of German cruelty and murder to the Damn Ground -I think then the Moshiach will come.
Oh my gosh Frum Ger, I think that is the most horrible thing I’ve ever heard. There are honestly people selling beer and hot dogs at these death camps?! :^(
I have never agreed with the whole German thing of “let’s hide the Fuhrerbunker from history lest it become a monument” or whatever they did to Hilter’s remains to keep them from becoming a grave shrine. It seemed like overkill to me.
But if people are really selling t-shirts, hot dogs and / or beer outside of the ruins of these awful, awful camps I totally understand why all that was done now.
That makes me feel just sick. :^(
I understand what they were going for and I can appreciate the sentiment, because I don’t think that they were bragging that THEY PERSONALLY survived – I think they were pointing out that we, as a nation, survived.
That said, this video definitely made me feel very uncomfortable… Dancing and celebrating and a mass graveyard? Rationally I can understand wanting to turn a symbol of genocide and cruelty to a symbol of survival and endurance, but… emotionally, it’s too much of a leap for me, I guess.
http://news.yahoo.com/video/world-15749633/20897323
The Socialist Anti-Semitic Myth of the Creation of Money out
of Thin Air
http://iakal.wordpress.com/2014/07/04/the-socialist-anti-semitic-myth-of-the-creation-of-money-out-of-thin-air/