iI will survive' in Auschwitz

[Bruno]

I wanted to post this in the 'funny vid' thread, but decided against it because this has so much meaning to it.

I found this story and at first I thought it was in very bad taste. But then I learned that the group of people dancing are a camp survivor and his grandchildren. I decided to watch the video and this lifted my spirits.

It's true that if this were just a group of pop artists trying to use this as a publicity stunt, I'd disapprove. But if you've lived there, I think you've earned the right to mock the empire that tried to exterminate your people. I think it is the ultimate middle finger towards neo nazism, and extremism in general.

YouTube - I Will Survive Dancing Auschwitz full version

[Stubear]

+1 on that..!

A few of the papers here made a bit of a stink about this video, calling it disrespectful and so on, but I agree; If you're a survivor, and that persons children, then its a really good way of sticking your finger up at that Nazi mindset.

I really like the image of this brave man and his grandchildren dancing to this song, and being applauded for it, in a camp that epitomises the brutality of that regime.

[smokelaw1]

As an American Jew far too young to have witnessed the horrors of WW2 first hand, I honestly don't know what to think. I've heard the controversy. The man has the right to dance wherever he damned well pleases. He survived one of the worst horrors that man has beset upon his fellow man. At the same time....don't those places, much like the WTC site in Manhattan become hallowed ground? A cemetary?

Would I tell him or his grandchildren not to dance there? Hell no.

Is it a big old middle-finger to Nazism, Facism, and all the hateful -isms that ruin mankind? Yes, I guess it is....but is it also perhaps in poor taste?

I am honest when I said abve....I just don't know what to think.

Sometimes something can be btoh your right, a middle-finger to very middle-finger worthy ideas, and still in poor taste, perhaps.


Or maybe I'm thinking far too much about it, and I should thank whatever powers allowed him to survive and for that whole family to exist....and that is all.

[Bruno]

I am not a Jew, but my grandfather survived Fort Breendonk. Sadly he died before I got to know him, but my grandmother sometimes told me about the war, though she did not talk about the nasty bits.

If he would have been alive when I was old enough to grasp the horror of the place that was one of the worst camps in Europe, I would have gladly danced this dance with him and mock the evil empire that tried to destroy them.

[smokelaw1]

Bruno,

I had read about Breendonk when writing a report about resistence to the Nazis when I was younger. A horrible place, indeed.

Mixed feelings that I may have aside (more unsure than mixed, I feel), I would gladly do the same dance with any survivor of any Nazi camp.

[JohnnyCakeDC]

I thought that was cool. Thanks

[WongKonPow]

I don't think it's in poor taste. He's returned to places that did horrific things to him and his people. The dancing not only says "Haha, you didn't get me.", but also is probably a way to come to terms, to express and celebrate his freedom with his grandchildren, the ultimate and most important part of his survival.

[nun2sharp]

It looks like the ultimate triumph of the innocent against the evil, the old man is dancing on the grave they dug for him, but they are gone and he is here, GOOD FOR HIM!