Vladimir Putin’s Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov’s wife Tatiana Navka and actor Andrei Burkovsky performed a Holocaust-themed ice skating routine Saturday night which was called “shameful” but many who have watched it.
Dressed in black and white pinstriped death camp inmate pajamas complete with a gold Magen David, with the Israeli song “Beautiful That Way” for background, the couple performed figure skating jumps, spins, lifts, and other bits of ice rink choreography, in a kind of Auschwitz meets Grenoble show.
Tatiana Navka, a gold medalist in ice dancing at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, posted photos from her Holocaust on Ice routine on Instagram, with an inspirational message to parents to let their children watch the movie “Life is Beautiful,” because “Our children need to know and remember that terrible time, which I hope, God willing, they will never know!”
Amazingly, Tatiana’s performance was received with applause by the audience, but social media folks have been condemning it in a mix of rage and disbelief, demanding an apology for an astonishing desecration of the memory of the most terrifying event in recent human history.
Sarah Silverman twitted: “Oh those whacky Holocaust victims (OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD).”
Deborah E. Lipstadt twitted: “HAVE YOU LOST ALL SENSE OF DECENCY? HAVE YOU NO SHAME? The Holocaust on ice, complete with a sound track of barking dogs.”
Many people kept their all-caps key on when responding to this one.
And Michael Ian Black twitted: “This might be offensive if they hadn’t take such great care to recreate all the wonderful ice dancing going on at Aushwitz at the time.”