Israel’s Poland embassy wants nude Auschwitz clip removed

Video of naked gas chamber tag game, part of the ‘experience of Auschwitz’ exhibit in Krakow, draws criticism from Jewish groups

By JTA 10 June 2015, 9:20 pm

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Rails in the former Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in Oswiecim, southern Poland, 2005. (AP/Czarek Sokolowski, File)

Israel’s embassy in Warsaw asked organizers of an art exhibition about Auschwitz to remove a controversial video of naked people playing tag in a gas chamber.

The video is part of an exhibition titled “Poland – Israel – Germany. The experience of Auschwitz,” which opened last month at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow, about the former Nazi death camp’s impact on public discourse. It was endorsed and sponsored by the Israeli Embassy in Poland.

“The embassy has learned of criticism regarding the video in question and has contacted organizers with a request that the parts deemed offensive be removed,” Michael Sobelman, the embassy’s spokesman, told JTA on Wednesday.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Center of Organizations of Holocaust Survivors in Israel both criticized the video and called it inappropriate for an exhibition with sponsorship from the embassy.

In February, an Estonian museum pulled the video from a display after similar protests and apologized for any offense it may have caused.