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Thread: I Will Survive; Dancing in Auschwitz

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    The Queen Zuul's avatar
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    Default I Will Survive; Dancing in Auschwitz

    On a recent trip to Europe, a family of three generations (a Holocaust survivor, his daughter and his grandchildren) dance to Gloria Gaynor's pop song - 'I Will Survive' at concentration camps and memorials throughout Europe.

    ...

    This dance is a tribute to the tenacity of the human spirit and a celebration of life.


    Is it poor taste and dancing on the graves of the fallen, or a family's celebration that despite all attempts they are still here and surviving three generations later?

  2. #2
    Obeah Man, Mischief Maker, Lord of Bees Skald the Rhymer's avatar
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    It is a celebration of the spirit of life, I should think, and a metaphorical middle finger at Hitler. It is entirely appropriate for the grandchildren to dance as well, as their doing so highlights the fact that the Nazis failed in their evil and genocidal endeavor.
    "Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon." (Chesterton)

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    MOON GIRL FIGHTS CRIME Myrnalene's avatar
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    Copied from chate:

    It seems remarkably straightforward to me. If you were not taken in train cars to Auschwitz and starved and abused and made to see so many people around you die, if you didn't lose everything, if you weren't even fucking born for 50 years after it happened, you don't get to laugh and shake your ass on the spot where so many people suffered and died.

    I don't have a problem with granddad. The kids are remarkably insensitive. It wasn't just their grandpa that was there, and this is not their tragedy to......make light of maybe isn't the right phrase. But it doesn't really sit right with me.
    everything in nature is sort of gross when you look at it too closely. what is an apple? basically the uterus of a tree - terrifel

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    Curmudgeon OtakuLoki's avatar
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    It squicks me out a bit.

    Honestly, if I'd seen them dancing in person I probably wouldn't feel so strongly. But there's an element of exhibitionism here - dancing and then posting it on the web for everyone to see - that disturbs me.

    I get that it's meant to be a celebration of life, but I don't really see Aushwitz, or other major Holocaust sites as being the seats of Nazism. If I wanted to rub my face into the ghost of Nazism, I'd look for the Reichstag. At this point, all the dance signifies to me is "I got into my lifeboat!" It's worth celebrating, certainly, but this seems about as crass as having an "I got out on 9/11" party at the site of the Twin Towers.

    In short, it's the wrong place for the message. No matter the right that the grandfather have to claim to 'own' the site.

  5. #5
    MOON GIRL FIGHTS CRIME Myrnalene's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by OtakuLoki View post
    At this point, all the dance signifies to me is "I got into my lifeboat!" It's worth celebrating, certainly, but this seems about as crass as having an "I got out on 9/11" party at the site of the Twin Towers.
    There is an element of this, too, and I'm trying to feel more generous about it than I do. It's fantastic that this guy got out, and went on to raise a family. I'm really glad that he did. At the same time, so many people did not "survive" and as much as I'm sure this is intended as an eff you to the monsters who put him there, it's doesn't really seem all that respectful to the people that didn't make it out.
    everything in nature is sort of gross when you look at it too closely. what is an apple? basically the uterus of a tree - terrifel

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    Elen síla lumenn' omentielvo What Exit?'s avatar
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    I'm leaning towards Loki's view. It just seems wrong but on the other hand, he is a survivor and if this is what he felt the need to do, I won't begrudge him it.

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    The Queen Zuul's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by OtakuLoki View post
    At this point, all the dance signifies to me is "I got into my lifeboat!" It's worth celebrating, certainly, but this seems about as crass as having an "I got out on 9/11" party at the site of the Twin Towers.
    I don't think that's a very charitable way of viewing it at all. The attacks on 9/11 weren't meant to commit genocide. To have survived those attacks is good and a stroke of luck, but the goal of the attacks--terror--was still achieved.

    The goal of the Holocaust was to wipe out the Jewish people. I didn't view this as, "Look at me, I'm alive!" but as, "Look, we, the Jewish people, are still alive and reproducing." Judging from the description of the video I don't think that they intended it as a celebration of one man's survival, but a celebration of the failure to wipe out their people.

    If you're Jewish, the Holocaust is your tragedy, specifically because it was aimed toward destroying you or preventing you from being born. I'm not saying the video is the most tasteful thing ever, but saying the family is wrong to be celebrating their continued survival seems to be based off a faulty individualistic view of history.

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    Curmudgeon OtakuLoki's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Zuul View post
    I'm not saying the video is the most tasteful thing ever, but saying the family is wrong to be celebrating their continued survival seems to be based off a faulty individualistic view of history.
    I certainly didn't mean to imply I though the wrong to celebrate their survival. Or their existence.

    I simply believe that they choose a poor place to do it.

    I'll admit, for me, part of that feeling is because I know my extended family (on my father's side) effectively ceased to exist outside of the small fraction that had emigrated to the US. For me, Aushwitz, Buchenwald, and the other death camps represent where part of my family went up in smoke.

    ETA: I wonder, Zuul, does that personal link make my criticism more effective, or less so?
    Last edited by OtakuLoki; 19 Jul 2010 at 02:25 PM.

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    Stegodon
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    It's a family's celebration and I don't think it diminishes the fallen whatsoever.
    Science flies you to the moon; religion flies you into buildings.

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    The Queen Zuul's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by OtakuLoki View post
    I certainly didn't mean to imply I though the wrong to celebrate their survival. Or their existence.

    I simply believe that they choose a poor place to do it.
    If this was simply the daughter and grandchildren, I'd agree with you, but the fact that the man is a Holocaust survivor changes things, IMO. A governmental building would just be a symbol and an impersonal one at that. It's quite likely this man has spent the past sixty-odd years trying to come to grips with the things he saw and experienced. Going to places that reminded him of what he went through and the people that he lost was likely a far more powerful experience than just going to a place where far distant decisions were made.

    It just seems a bit cavalier to liken what has likely been a lifetime struggle to overcome the horrors to which he was subjected to somebody getting on a lifeboat.

    Quote Originally posted by OtakuLoki
    I'll admit, for me, part of that feeling is because I know my extended family (on my father's side) effectively ceased to exist outside of the small fraction that had emigrated to the US. For me, Aushwitz, Buchenwald, and the other death camps represent where part of my family went up in smoke.

    ETA: I wonder, Zuul, does that personal link make my criticism more effective, or less so?
    I think a personal link can strengthen the validity of your viewpoint. However, I still disagree with you. This isn't some guy who got lucky and got out of Germany in time. This wasn't just one sudden swoop of death that took out some people and not others. He had to live through it. Survivors of something like that might be "lucky" in that they're still alive, but they went through many of the same horrors that the dead did and live with the burdens of what they saw.

  11. #11
    Curmudgeon OtakuLoki's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Zuul View post
    Going to places that reminded him of what he went through and the people that he lost was likely a far more powerful experience than just going to a place where far distant decisions were made.
    Where I see going to where the mass movement began, as being more powerful. It may be looking at the first few stones of an avalanche, seemingly inconsequential actions that end up causing an unstoppable wave of destruction - but for me it's those little steps that started the damning of the German state.

    Thinking about it further - where I'd want to dance to stick it to the ghost of Nazism would be Nazi party rally grounds in Nuremberg. It was there, after all that the so-called Nuremberg Laws, the racial purity laws that began the Holocaust, were first revealed, and the push to get them passed began.

    IMNSHO, that's where the tragedies began. Where the devil's deal was displayed. Ignoring it seems to me to let far too many people off the hook. The SS was the smallest part of the machine that ground up millions of people during the Holocaust. The death and work camps were a small fraction of the SS own organization. By making the Holocaust mostly about the camps seems to me to be missing the major point to be drawn from the horror. It may be cliche, but the rallying cry of the post-war era still seems to me to be the biggest single lesson to be drawn from the Holocaust: It can happen here.

    It just seems a bit cavalier to liken what has likely been a lifetime struggle to overcome the horrors to which he was subjected to somebody getting on a lifeboat.
    I don't think anyone survives on a lifeboat through a major disaster without having to deal with the horrors they've seen. I don't mean to cavalierly dismiss his suffering or his struggles.

    Without the publicity factor, I would have no reservations at all. It's when it became a public celebration, rather than simply a private one, that my reaction towards it becomes much less accepting.



    I think a personal link can strengthen the validity of your viewpoint. However, I still disagree with you.
    Which is what makes for interesting discussions. Who wants to live in an echo box?

  12. #12
    The Queen Zuul's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by OtakuLoki View post
    Thinking about it further - where I'd want to dance to stick it to the ghost of Nazism would be Nazi party rally grounds in Nuremberg. It was there, after all that the so-called Nuremberg Laws, the racial purity laws that began the Holocaust, were first revealed, and the push to get them passed began.

    IMNSHO, that's where the tragedies began. Where the devil's deal was displayed.
    Absolutely, but this guy may have actually been in one of those camps. Focus on the political all you want, but that's a hell of a more visceral experience. He likely spent far more time thinking about what he personally saw and experienced than the Nuremberg Laws. This was probably far less a carefully considered political statement and far more a "these places make me think about my own experience of the Holocaust" sort of thing.

    Quote Originally posted by OtakuLoki
    I don't think anyone survives on a lifeboat through a major disaster without having to deal with the horrors they've seen. I don't mean to cavalierly dismiss his suffering or his struggles.

    Without the publicity factor, I would have no reservations at all. It's when it became a public celebration, rather than simply a private one, that my reaction towards it becomes much less accepting.
    I can respect that. As I said, I don't think this was done in the best of taste. But I cannot fault the man or his family for going to those places and feeling a sense of joy at the survival of their race and the failure at wiping them out.

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