Saturday, July 10, 2010
Via Jeff Jacoby on twitter:
Maybe you have to be a survivor's kid to relate, but this video - "Dancing Auschwitz" - had me in tears. The good kind.
Touching and profound on one level, concerns me on another. The man and his family survived, which is a categorical good, and dancing on what is, in effect, his own grave is a beautiful thing. Yet I can't get it out of my head that many people didn't make it, and that is also a place for them. The background images speak their stories as well.
Auschwitz is a big place.
Update: Some back story: Jewish artist defends YouTube video 'Dancing Auschwitz' (via Yaacov Lozowick.)
This video is insensitive and simply sick.
How would Americans feel if a dance troop would dance at Ground Zero to "I Will Survive"?
The people behind this "performance" should be ashamed of themselves.
As a surivors' grandchild this artistic video clip is very touching for me and had me in tears. It is so powerful and shaking and yt, so much full of vitality, homour and love. It has had a similar effect on my emotions as Primo Levi's novels have.
Well done to the brave artist and her beautiful family,especially her amazing father.
I understand the point they are trying to make but I too found it disturbing. For every Jew that lived, there were 6 who perished. And I can't get
these numbers out of my mind when I watch them dance.
I believe that his celebration of life gives voice to the millions who were murdered in the holocaust: he outlived all those nazis, and so will the Jewish nation and the state of Israel. It is for the neo-nazis to realize this.
Moving, powerful, awesome. A big fuck you to those that tried, time and time again, to exterminate us.
This was not some "dance troop" spitting on the memory of lost souls. This is a man who survived the worst other men could do to him, returning with his beautiful progeny to assert his humanity and his triumph over evil.
Hitler took some of my family too. We've danced in peace near their graves, holding hands with the freedom-loving children of those who killed them. I reccomend it highly, it frees the soul and focuses the mind on today - and tomorrow.
Would it be such a terrible thing, 75 years from now, for the grandchildren of those who died on 9-11 to dance in peace there, along with the repentant, respectful children of Jihadist thugs and terrorists? Such a wonderful thing is possible, if we have the courage to fight for what is right!
The biggest FUCK YOU to nazi filth, islamofascists, the helen thomas's/mel gibsons of the world, is a STRONG Israel where Jews are the masters of their fate, and NOT dependent on others as they were in WW2.
Auschwitz, Birkenau and the rest are places where people were murdered on an industrial scale, where there are mass graves nearby.
A group of morons dancing to a stupid disco song at death camps is insensitive and absolutely in poor taste.
So, Eddie, where were you when Adelak Kohn (Jane Korman's father) was surviving Auschwitz? And why would you call him and his children and grandchildren "a group of morons?"
There's a lot more to this story, published here
http://thejewishstar.wordpress.com/2010/07/09/work-won%E2%80%99t-set-you-free-perhaps%C2%A0dancing/
I had misgivings about this video at first as well, but after watching it and reading more about it, I realize I'm not in a position to pass judgment. (And it brought tears to my eyes, as well.)
Lynn, you too are dense.
Dancing at death camps, where millions of people were murdered and buried in mass graves is inappropriate.
If the dance troop wanted to shimmy and shake and announce that they survived, a place like Bitburg, where nazi filth are buried and honored by a visit by OVERRATED president reagan, would have been "brave".
Get a life those who find this upsetting and inappropriate...it is a celebration of life by a survivor and his grandchildren...Jews have danced on their enemies ruins since Abraham's time and will continue to do so...this is a statement that not only can we dance on the Nazi's graves but also on our own!
Usually dancing on someone's grave means celebrating their demise.
Just like the Muslims do to those they have killed and buried.
So this is a statement that not only can we dance on the Nazi's graves but also on our own!
needs to be explained to some whose particular English idiomatic usage is from the previous century.
Do you imply that by the "also on our own" the "we" are also capable of celebrating their own demise?
The proposed 9/11 mosque is "dancing on the graves" of the people who died from the 9/11 sneak attack on New York City.
Lame, lame, lame. It is not offensive, it is just stupid. I'd love to see the rest of the work of this "artist". So sorry for the Australians who paid with their tax dollars this thing.
You can do a black version, a gay version and a handicapped version too!
How do you dare to call yourself an "artist"?
"How do you dare to call yourself an "artist"?"
More like bullshit artist.
I understand people's views from both sides, however we live in a world full of sick people who enjoy hurting people. So if one amazing man who has survived the most appalling experience of his life wants to show the rest of the world he has SURVIVED, why should we stop him.
Deepest respect to all that lost their lives and to those that SURVIVED.