Poland – Former Auschwitz inmate’s celebration of beating the Nazis clocks up 500,000 YouTube hits
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A Jewish Holocaust survivor who danced with his family at the entrance to Auschwitz concentration camp and other Nazi death camp memorials has attracted a growing following on the internet with a film of their performance.
Adolek Kohn, 89, a former Auschwitz prisoner who is now an Australian citizen, said the video, which shows him, his daughter Jane and her three children bopping to Gloria Gaynor’s hit song I Will Survive, is meant as an affirmation of life and stands as a celebration of his own survival.
But the so-called Auschwitz Dance film, which has clocked up around 500,000 hits on You Tube, has attracted a whole gamut of responses from viewers, ranging from disgust to admiration.
One viewer called it offensive and “disrespectful to all those who perished”, while another said it was a “life-affirming middle finger to the Nazis”. Another said it had moved him to tears of joy.
The family is shown doing a line-dance at the gates of Auschwitz in Poland in front of the infamous Arbeit Macht Frei sign, in Terezin in the Czech Republic, Dachau in Germany, and various synagogues, wearing T-shirts bearing the slogan Survivor. In some scenes they are wearing Jewish stars of David sewn into their clothing, the symbol Jews were forced to wear during the Third Reich.
At the end of the video Kohn is heard saying: “If someone would tell me here, then, that I would come, 60-something-three years later, with my grandchildren I’d say ‘What you talking about?’ So here you are. This is really a historical moment.”
His daughter, an artist, said she suggested the project to her father, adding it was created in defiance of the adage that there could be “no art after Auschwitz”.
“It was important to create something that gave a fresh interpretation of the Holocaust because for the younger generation the word and images you see of the Holocaust are numbing,” she said.
“It wasn’t easy to ask my father, but I had to do it.”
She recorded the dance sequences on her laptop during the trip, which took place last summer.
I saw the video, and really wasn’t sure what to make of it. I think it’s clear enough that the people involved meant no disrespect to the memory of any of the victims of the Holocaust.
While I do understand why some people would disapprove, I think one should be very careful before deciding to criticize the way in which a Holocaust survivor chooses to express his feelings about survival. Simply put, his perspective is probably not something we can hope to share.
I’m glad he survived to dance, and I wish the others had, as well.
He should have used more haimishe music like Lipa. Perhaps they haven’t heard of him down under.
very touching
Every penny spent in eastern Europe, especially Poland and the Ukraine goes to support the direct descendents of the 2 legged animals that murderd, tortured our parents and brothers and sisters including a million children.
Think about that next time you take a tour of Poland
Baruch Hashem most or all of the people who can and will comment about this, did not have to go through what this person did. Knowing this, please keep all negative comments to yourself.
When I went with my Yeshiva, we did the same thing (albeit with different music…) We did it because true nekomoh against the Nazis ym”sh, was the fact that we were there, 2 generations past, singing “Utzu aitoh v’sufar” at the top of our lungs.
One should never question anything that a survivor does as he is a holy person.
To dance in Auschwitz is gross and an insult to those who died there. Maybe some of you could on the treifene internet and click on Auschwitz album. Small children were pushed into the gas chambers, Kanada group inmates searched the orifices of the gassed for jewelry, dead children had to pried from clinging to their mother, teeth [gold] were removed from the gassed Jews mouth and converted into gold bars kept in Swiss vaults and now Jews a dancing. This is the largest cemetery of Jews in world , gross , sickening and reflects the pathological status of some surivors, shame
When I was in Auschwitz with a group, we stood by the Death Wall and 3 of us said kaddish. Then we sang the famous Ani Maamin composed by R’ Azriel Fastag hy’d in a cattle car going to Auschwitz. Yes the greatest revenge we have is that we are alive and raising doros yeshorim meverochim.
Netzach Yisrael !!! I can understand how this Gentleman at 89 would wish to express his simchas hachayim with his family in his personal way before his 120 years pass. I pray that his family — and really all of us — be zocheh to take this lesson to heart and have HaKaras HaTov to HKBH for all the good we have received. I am certain that the neshamas in that Holy Bais Olam were there with him and were happy that he remembered them and wanted all of us to watch that video and learn the lesson of Netzach Yisrael.
Only a sick perverted person will dance on a blood soaked cemetery where thousands of Jewish children were murdered
If Lipa sang “I will survive”, it would be fitting. I hope this family’s survival dance brings comfort amid the tragic memories. It IS a victory over Hitler for this family to go there of their own will, celebrate their freedom, and then leave under their own power.
60 years after…. My mother (tzu langeh yurin) had her sons organize a siyum shas for “closure”. Thirty days later, her sons, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, cousins, and landslight over three continents, completed all six sederim of Mishnah, on the 19th of Tammuz, the (held) yahrtzeit for her family.
Yet another way to acknowledge her survival and how she built doros.
I was not in Auschwitz my brother and cousins were gassed but I was for 4 yes four years in concentration camps and the statement I madeis based on testimony from survivors which I in course of my work I did have to read.
It is not allowed to dance and sing during the nine days but I understand his feelings
reply to #15 David: Well said. He certainly has. May he continue dancing til “120”.
Holocaust Survivors are permitted to dance anytime and anywhere they please. They suffered many more “9 days” and “Tisha B’avs” than we will ever know. Those days of suffering should be replaced with days of Happiness for them until 120. How can you tell that they are permitted to celebrate their survival? The permit number is tattooed on their arm!
this is not real revenge… the real revenge will be when the big day of revenge will arrive n hashem himself will take the big revenge of all the murdurers as it says in Hazini “ki yoim nukom belibi” n as we say in Uvini Malkeini “Nekoim nikmas dam avudechu hashufich”
Life is for the living!! As Shlomo said, Isn’t a live dog, better than a dead lion? What a true testament to Simcha and Survival!!
all you wise chachomim since make comments you must have access to the internet . Click on google and type in Auschwitz album maybe and that is a maybe you will understand the reason for not dancing in Auschwitz during the nine days or any other time
Mixed dancing?
A moron. He survived but that gives him no right to party on the ground where millions were tortured and killed, experimented on and starved.
with project witness and all the renewed efforts to keep the memory of the holocaust alive…i find myself thinking alot about the yidden who went through the holocaust and its beyond my imagination as to how much the suffered….the physical, and emotional pain….the degradation… how did they deal with little childen,,,just writing this now makes me shudder..i dont know how they survived…(obviously miracles..yad HaShem for each survivor…) and how they had teh will to survive and live hrog all the loss of life…oyy….
what really blows my mnd is how can humans treat humans the way the gemans did???? how???its mind boggling!!!!! we all feel pain….its really not to be believed…yet unfortunately it is true…
every holocaust survivor is a tzaddik just for the pain they went through and we can never judge their behavior…
i have a relative who is a bit rough round teh edges and i always despisd him and one day i realized how much he suffered (he is BH 80 now till 120 healthy) and what he went through by age 7 he had no childhood and i started really feeling bad for him….now when he gets angry or yells i just attribute it to risiduals of his horific experience
As a first generation of parents who survived, and my mother (RIP) who actually survived the left line in Auschwitz, I could understand this man and his family dancing; on the other hand I do understand the people who are enraged about his actions, as the song goes, damed if I do, damed if I don’t. The only thing that comes to my mind is, Yisgadal v’yiskadash shmai raba.
Please; this is a spoiled, secular American liberal “artist” exploiting Auschwitz under the guise of her father’s “revenge.”.
Playing Gloria Gaynor’s “I survived” has nothing to do with Yiddishkeit and the survivors- its pure shtick.
This is a gross insult to the millions who perished and whose ashes and blood lie unmarked in the ground on which they danced.
My grandfather and grandmother, saintly Jews, were killed in Auschwitz, singing Ani Maamin, not an American rock song. They did not even have the decency to put on a yarmulka in the world’s largest Jewish cemetery.
Can one imagine doing this at ground zero? they would be run out of town, and far less people dies there and at least efforts were made to recover the bodies and remains and bury them elsewhere.
Ah Shanda! Shame!
I said it before and I will say it again, Dont judge someone until you’ve been there. Someone before said it very well, he has his permit to sing whereever he pleases on his arm! I was there in Aushwitz for the first time this year. What I saw, the pictures, the exhibits, the “live” evidence of what happened there, made me believe that the lucky ones were killed before they got to the camps. The fact that he can sing and dance in front of those gates proves that they did’nt die in vain.
I just saw this video and i want to say that it was one of the most inspiring things I have ever seen–this 89 year old ( biz 120) showed us all that we will survive. I found myself wishing I had been there with them because I too would have gotten up to dance. I banged my fist on my computer desk somehow hoping that I could be part of this.I showed to my 88 year old mother (biz 120) an Auschwitz survivor from Lodz–I saw tears in her eyes and she told me she was proud of that man !!!!! So–Adolek Cohn–I hope you dance the rest of your life–with your family–at their weddings and simchas–biz a hundret un tventsik !!!
Adolek Cohn, you are my hero .I’yh after tisha b’av I will buy the record and dance ,albeit alone .
my father o’h, when asked in which camp he was in, he use to say “i’ve been in all the hotels”, he use to tell me,that the only reason that he survived is, because he was never meyayesh, and every morning when he woke up, he looked at the nazi yimach shemo vezichro into his face and told him (quietely of course so that the nazi couldn’t hear him) OIF TZI LEHUCHES, ICH VEL DIR IBERLEBEN….
yhe zichro burech, because that was a generation with so much emunah, that we will never see that type again.