Before I turn in, I had to point people to this. Rave parties at Auschwitz?
An Internet video that depicts the Nazi death camp Auschwitz as a rave party drew sharp criticism Wednesday from a Jewish rights group, which urged authorities to have it removed from European Web sites.
The three-minute video titled “Housewitz” — a pun on house music and Auschwitz — casts Nazi soldiers as DJs. It alternates black-and-white still photos of Holocaust atrocities with color images of youths at an outdoor party. And it advertises a “Free taxi ride home,” showing a wheelbarrow full of corpses.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s European office denounced the video as “outrageous,” saying it goes “beyond the bounds of freedom of expression to an unprecedented level of obscenity.”
Oh dear. Can you imagine a hip-hop musical about the Rape of Nanjing? What ever happened to respect and good taste? How far will assholes people go for some free publicity?
1
By Johnny K
Hey, at least people don’t compare the President of the United States to Hitler…oh…wait….never mind.
Nazism allusions are a disgrace to the millions of people killed by Nazism, no matter who makes them.
August 10, 2005 @ 10:02 pm | Comment
2
By Keir
What kind of group would put such a thing out? If it’s a skinhead group that’s one thing; you expect such garbage from them. If it’s a more ‘innocent’ type of group, it makes me shudder about the debasing of mass murder for today’s generation (see Prince Harry’s Afrika Korps costume at the ‘Colonial and Natives’ party- the photyographer was actually taking a picture of William in a lion outfit, not even noticing the Nazi armband!).
But then, read the web host’s justification for hosting it- “We didn’t make the video, but it is an integral part of the discussion by our viewers. It’s not illegal and we don’t intend to remove it from the site.” Morality and ethics has no place in today’s world when children grow up taking such a blase view of mass genocide.
August 10, 2005 @ 10:16 pm | Comment
3
By Emile
Hey, fr33dom of sp33ch. The video may suck and be offensive, but I don’t like interest groups asking that it be r3moved from eureopean w3b pages. That’d set a bad precedent. C3nsorship on the int3rn3t sucks.
(okay, for some reason it timed out when I posted this and I couldn’t access TPD for a few minutes. Quite ironic considering the subject at hand ^^)
August 11, 2005 @ 12:16 am | Comment
4
By Guy
“But then, read the web host’s justification for hosting it- “We didn’t make the video, but it is an integral part of the discussion by our viewers. It’s not illegal and we don’t intend to remove it from the site.” Morality and ethics has no place in today’s world when children grow up taking such a blase view of mass genocide.”
Some background. I won’t defend the decision of shocklog GeenStijl to post this video, but they posted it as a sharp indictment of the behaviour of skindheads and made that very clear in their post, calling the, then unknown makers of the video “sickos” for instance. They did, and do, NOT condone the content of the video. And neither do their commenters.
Whether one should bring the antics of our sick fellow human beings to the public’s attention is another question, but GeenStijl succeeded in showing them for what they are: sick idiots.
BTW, I am in no way affiliated with GeenStijl. It is just one of the blogs I read more or less regularly to gauge the temperature of public discourse in my home country, The Netherlands.
August 11, 2005 @ 6:21 am | Comment
5
By Guy
Oh, another thing. In the linked article it says: The site, whose name means “no style”.
“Geen Stijl” is a Dutch expression meaning “no way to behave” or “inappropriate”.
August 11, 2005 @ 6:31 am | Comment
6
By Guy
“What kind of group would put such a thing out?”
One student of economics, a “nerd” according to his father, who, incidentally, was found and outed by GeenStijl.
August 11, 2005 @ 7:08 am | Comment
7
By richard
Johnny, I agree and get exasperated when the Democratic Underground-types make Hitler – Bush comparisons. On the other hand, Dobson and other right-wing loons constantly make such comparisons with people like Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean and Ted Kennedy. It’s the wrong thing to do all the way around.
August 11, 2005 @ 8:12 am | Comment
8
By Keir
” fr33dom of sp33ch. The video may suck and be offensive, but I don’t like interest groups asking that it be r3moved from eureopean w3b pages. That’d set a bad precedent. C3nsorship on the int3rn3t sucks.”
Are there not laws in Europe prohibiting denial of the holocaust, or promoting hatred of minority groups? Does Germany not ban Nazi-themed books and the like, and France bans the purchasing of Nazi memorabilia on the web? Britain to this day still has blasphemy laws. So if you want a precedent, I can refer you to centuries-old laws. You don’t care for censorship of the web, do you; does this extend to child pornography?
I agree with freedom of speech, hate what you say but die for your right etc. and all that, but my complaint is with the host site. The kid responsible isn’t promoting the video using his own funds alone. The site is owned by a man who could decide what to show and what he refuses; does he not have any sense of decency?
August 12, 2005 @ 12:16 pm | Comment