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Survivor disco dances at Auschwitz
A video featuring a Holocaust survivor dancing at Auschwitz to the pop song I Will Survive has received a mixed reaction across the internet.
July 13, 2010 10:07
A video featuring a Holocaust survivor dancing at Auschwitz to the pop song I Will Survive has received a mixed reaction across the internet.
July 13, 2010 10:07A video featuring a Holocaust survivor dancing at Auschwitz to the pop song "I Will Survive" has received a mixed reaction across the internet, with many slamming it as “disgusting” and “tasteless”.
Jane Korman, a Jewish Australian artist, filmed her 89-year-old father Adolk and other family members performing a routine to the disco hit at different points around the Nazi concentration camp.
A smiling Mr Korman is shown at Auschwitz, as well as the sites of Theresienstadt and Dauchau, wearing a shirt with “Survivor” printed on it.
The “I Will Survive: Dancing Auschwitz” clip has attracted more than 265,000 hits on YouTube but many have condemned it as “sick” and in “bad taste”.
Ms Korman said the work, displayed previously in an Australian art gallery, was meant as a “celebration of life and survival”.
You must have known this would be offensive to millions of people
She said: “I wanted to make artwork that creates a fresh interpretation of historical memory.
“It might be disrespectful, but he is saying ‘we're dancing, we should be dancing, we're celebrating our survival and the generations after me’ – the generation he created.
“We are affirming our existence.”
But the footage has been posted on Neo-Nazi websites and some viewers have left antisemitic comments below it.
One person wrote: “Look, the Jews are still dancing in every corner. We aren't through with them; we will finish them in the next Holocaust.”
Viewers were divided over whether the video was disrespectful to victims of the Holocaust.
One said: “I applaud the desire to celebrate life, but you must have known this would be offensive to millions of people.
“You should respect those who wish for Auschwitz to remain a somber place of reflection, and those who lost their lives there.”
Others praised it as a celebration of survival and said it was good “to see some joy in places where so much misery has taken place.”
And, as one person wrote, “He's a holocaust survivor.
“I'm pretty sure he understands it probably better than most of the people commenting here.”
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