Dancing at Auschwitz

The notation at YouTube reads:

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 clip was first edited with the help of my friend Pisithpong Siraphisit who runs Compeung Art Village, Chiang Mai, Thailand. This dance is a tribute to the tenacity of the human spirit and a celebration of life. Despite the systematic brutality and cruelty endured, we have still survived.

At first I thought: no; this is not solemn enough for a place of unimaginable horror and inhumanity.

Then I thought: This man survived it. He sort of owns all of it. He can do what he wants. But is this encouraging people to take things too lightly?

Then I concluded: We are watching the disease of Anti-Semitism, upon which these places were built, again fester in Europe, and the “global community” can barely be bothered to notice. The age is so bathed in irony that almost nothing is taken seriously; the people can’t pull themselves away from their gadgets…so why not? Why not launch a big, dancing middle finger directed toward the agents of apathy and malevolence, who thoughtlessly spout their hate, or who simply can’t be bothered speaking against it.

“I survived, baby! You did your worst, and now I dance on your historical dustbins. And I’ll dance again!”

Go for it, sir!

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