Holocaust-Themed Skating Performance Sparks Outrage (Video)
A smiling, playful and yet poignant ice skating performance on Russian national television has created a social media firestorm — because it is holocaust-themed.
Tatyana Navka, a famous champion ice skater in Russia and the wife of Vladimir Putin’s press spokesman Dmitry Peskov, did a holocaust themed skating performance Saturday on Russia’s “Dancing With the Stars” equivilant, “Ice Age” pairing with famous actor Andrey Burkovskiy.
Donned in striped pajamas and the Star of David, the couple smiled and frolicked to the tune of “The Beautiful Way,” which includes lyrics like, “Smile, no matter what they tell you.”
Navka took to Instagram, calling it “one of my favorite performances,” but her followers thought something quite different.
leedvash Im jewish and shame on u to do this dance of sad holocost!!!! This is not right thing !! !! Shame on u !!!
motekk What a pair of wackos!!!!! Hahaha idiots. I believe you are not Jewish ????????don’t you know only us the Jews can make holocaust jokes!!!!!!
rgbonney Twisted….strap yourselves in world….
m.mcgloin What are you doing??? You have such talent please use it in the right way..I have love for all mankind especially my Jewish friends
timkenney Tasteless. Insensitive. The Holocaust is not happy entertainment.
Twitter didn’t think much of it either:
@yashar I can't close my mouth. It won't let me. I. What are they going to choreograph next, a pogrom? How do you find this stuff, Y?
— Edana (@RedSaid) November 27, 2016
@yashar Its been 20 minutes and I'm still so horrified. Sometimes I hate the internet. But never before have I hated figure skaters.
— Edana (@RedSaid) November 27, 2016
@RedSaid you are speaking up for me here. I love figure skating so much… who would believe it could be so ugly? @yashar
— Tzippy Yarom صِپورة (@zpyarom) November 27, 2016
@RedSaid @yashar Americans have a different view of the holocaust than other countries, you delicate little snowflake
— Syphiliticus (@assssssssroight) November 27, 2016
@assssssssroight @RedSaid @yashar BULLSHIT, we non-idiots find it atrocious and something that can never be forgotten. Or forgiven!
— Carolee Thumma (@bec2224) November 27, 2016
It’s just shy of three years that Russian skater Julia Lipnitskaia’s gold-medal winning performance to John Williams’ theme from “Schindler’s List” was knocked in some circles as “Schindler’s List: On Ice.”
Katarina Witt first started skating to the music in 1994 in homage to Steven Spielberg’s film and in remembrance of the Holocaust. The 15-year-old Lipnitskaia, like Witt, dressed in red to recall the girl in red in Spielberg’s film: a Polish Jewish girl whose death fills Oskar Schindler with remorse. Her dress provides the only flash of color in the film, and makes her death stand out from all the others, just as it did in Schindler’s mind.
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