An Australian Jew who filmed a video of her family singing and dancing along to the Gloria Gaynor hit "I Will Survive" while on a trip to the Auschwitz death camp in Poland has defended herself against claims of tastelessness. Jane Korman posted the video of her 89-year-old father Adolk, who survived the Holocaust, and her three children dancing to the hit inside the infamous extermination centre which killed as many as 1.1 million people during WW2. At one point her father is seen wearing a T-shirt which has "I will survive" written across its front.
"I wanted to make artwork that creates a fresh interpretation of historical memory," Korman said. The video, posted on YouTube, depicted the Korman family dancing in front of the Auschwitz sign "Arbeit Macht Frei" - Work Sets You Free - a Polish synagogue, the German concentration camp of Dachau, the Czech concentration camp at Theresienstadt and a memorial in Lodz, Poland, to victims of the Nazi ghetto. But her video has upset many who survived the horrors of the camp, including 86-year-old Pole Kamil Cwiok He was just a child when he and his family was rounded up by the Nazis. Most of his family died in the gas chambers at Auschwitz. "I don’t see how this video is a mark of respect for the millions who didn’t survive, nor for those who did. "It seems to trivialise the horrors that were committed there," he said.
Korman has now defended herself saying her father fully supported the idea that this was "a celebration of life and survival." Many other Jewish survivors have however reacted negatively to the video, accusing her of disrespect. Yet Korman added; "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’s created. We are affirming our existence."
Apparently the video , which was exhibited in an Australia art gallery, was also picked up by several neo-Nazi websites in which they wrote "look, the Jews are still dancing in every corner. We aren't through with them; we will finish them in the next Holocaust." Korman said that her mother - who also survived the gas chambers - had refused to travel to Poland where the death camp is based because it held "too many bad memories."
4 comments:
Disrespectful? No. I saw this yesterday and it made me cry and laugh in delight at the same time. The dead are dead and that's a tragedy, but these people are alive and living because the Nazi death machine ultimately failed, and that is a tremendous reason for joy and dancing. Keep it up, Granpa, you made my day!
I think it's great, just a shame Adolf isn't locked up somewhere to see it, it's like one massive FU to him and his ilk, he tried, he failed, miserably, and the world is a better place for it!
Absolutely brilliant. Made me cry too. Folks who think it is in bad taste need an irony transplant.
I agree.
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