BY MADDIE GINSBERG | Guest Contributor | Recently I was at a place of business in Duluth playing trivia. The question was “What what Steven Spielberg’s first rated R-rated film?” The hint that was provided was the song “Singing in the Shower” by Becky G. The answer to this trivia question? Schindler’s List.
The DJ, when saying the answer said, “Yeah, I know this wasn’t an appropriate hint for this answer.” No, it wasn’t appropriate. It was flat out wrong.
At the end of the second World War, over 5.2 million people were killed by the Nazi Party and their supporters.
The targets of this genocide were Jews, Roma (Gypsies), the disabled, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, Afro-Germans, political dissidents, homosexuals, etc. This was one of the worst genocides in the history of the world.
You’d think that something so horrible wouldn’t be the butt of so many jokes or “funny” comparisons. I’m sure everyone has heard at least five different holocaust jokes in the last year, which isn’t okay.
This isn’t about being politically correct, this is about being a decent human being who isn’t going to make a joke about the death of millions.
This also isn’t an issue about not having a sense of humor. Having a sense of humor isn’t laughing at “Why don’t Jewish cannibals like eating Germans?” “They give them gas.” Or, “I was talking to this hot holocaust survivor the other day so I asked her for her number."
I’m not a perfect person, I know I’ve made a joke before, and it makes me feel terrible.
But why did I do it? To impress people? To show that I can be funny? The sad part is that no one told me that a joke I made was wrong, but instead everyone thought it was funny.
In 2012 the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reported that 437,000 people were murdered worldwide. Multiply that by the four years that the Nazis were committing genocide and that number comes out to 1.7 million. That’s only ⅓ of the total killed in the Holocaust from 1941 to 1945.
Let me help you with two suitable substitutes to the song the DJ chose, “Hatikva (The National Anthem of Israel)” or let me give you the easiest one, how about the theme song to the movie. Was that too hard to come to a conclusion to?
The lack of respect that people have about what happened during World War II is something I’ll never understand.
For those of you that are still not convinced, think of the one person you love the most in the world. Think of them being forced to strip naked, have their hair cut off, identities and names being replaced by a number. Now think of them being told they are just going to wash up, while being beaten and forced into a dark room.
Then, finally, they are brutally murdered like rats.
Sounds like a funny joke to me.