July 16, 2010, - 2:39 pm
Dancing @ Auschwitz: The “I Will Survive” Controversy
Many people have asked me what I think of the YouTube video of Holocaust survivor Adolek Kohn, dancing to “I Will Survive,” with his daughter and grandchildren, in front of Auschwitz Nazi death camp and other scenes of Holocaust tragedy. The video, made by his daughter, Australian artist Jane Korman, is posted below.
You might be surprised by my take, as the video has stirred much controversy and anger because many people say it is making light of the Holocaust.
Usually, I oppose what I think has become the “Holocash” business/industry. We must never forget the attempted (and somewhat successful) genocide of the Jewish people with the Nazis’ mass murder of six million of them, several of whom were my family members. But so many on the left–primarily in the Jewish community “leadership”–focus only on the dead Jews from 70 years ago and look the other way on the lives of Jews under attack from Muslims in Israel, Europe, and everywhere else. They refuse to connect the dots, so their recognition of the Holocaust dot is kinda pointless (and worthless).
Elie Wiesel, in my opinion, is among the worst offenders, as he went on Oprah Winfrey’s daytime talk show and said nothing about Israel, and nothing about guests on the show reading silly essays about their own “personal holocausts” of weight loss, abuse, and depression. Instead, he’s used his status as a Holocaust survivor to, for example, push Bill Clinton to send U.S. troops to help Muslims defeat Christians in Bosnia. That’s a perversion of the Holocaust.
And I’ve been critical of movies I believe do, in fact, make light of the Holocaust, including “Jakob the Liar” and “Life is Beautiful.” In general, I agree that remembrances of and memorials to the Holocaust should be solemn. But this is different.
As far as this video goes, I really have no problem with it, even if I think the dancing is somewhat silly and it is not something I would do nor would my relatives who survived the camps. No, I’m not a Holocaust survivor, though my maternal grandparents were, and my mother was born in Bergen Belsen concentration camp, after the war when it became a displaced persons camp. But what I see in the video is not making light of the Holocaust and what happened there. What I see is an 89-year-old man who–by enduring Auschwitz, as Kohn did–earned the right to dance around these places. What I see is a man who is celebrating that he survived, that not only did he survive, but that he had a daughter and grand-children, and that–despite the Nazi plan to eliminate him and the rest of the Jewish people, they failed. I see the dancing in the video as a guy who is dancing on the graves of the Nazis who wanted to wipe him out, as well as his family and his people. And I salute him for making the video, however cheesy it is and however lacking and corny the dancing of an 89-year-old Jewish dude may be.
My friend, David at The JIDF, disagrees. He says:
Personally, I’m disgusted by it, and I couldn’t watch more than a minute. I feel it’s disrespectful to the people who didn’t survive. It is like dancing at a gravesite and saying, “I’m alive, and you’re dead.” People don’t do that in cemeteries, and these are mass graves for people who never had the opportunity to have a funeral the way Adolek Kohn will when he passes away.
David, you make great points. And I see your point of view. I’m just glad that Adolek Kohn survived and that the Nazis were not successful in wiping out all of the Jewish people. To me, that’s the point of the video–that he not only lived but had children and grandchildren who outlive the Nazis that tried to erase their existence. But I can see how it appears the other way. We will never know for sure what the spirits and souls of those who were murdered at these places think, how they feel about this video, and whether or not they are turning over in their mass grave or happy that someone lived to tell and to continue the Jewish people with new generations.
What do you think? Disrespectful to those who were murdered by the Nazis? Or a celebration of those who survived despite their diabolical Final Solution plans?
Tags: 89, Adolek Kohn, Auschwitz, controversial, controversy, dancing, Holocaust, I Will Survive, Jane Korman, Nazi, Nazis, video, YouTube
LA CHAIM. It made me smile and cry at the same time. Take that you Nazi and Islamo-Bastards! We will always survive until a power greater than all decides otherwise.
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Moi on July 16, 2010 at 2:51 pm