An Australian artist who filmed her Holocaust survivor father and family dancing to Gloria Gaynor hit "I Will Survive" at Auschwitz said Thursday she was surprised but unbowed by criticism.
Melbourne woman Jane Korman said she had not anticipated such a negative backlash to her clip, which has gone viral since hitting video sharing site YouTube, but was not deterred from exploring the Holocaust through art.
"The response has definitely not put me off. In fact, it has been very encouraging, even if it might be negative," Korman told AFP by telephone from Israel. "It has kept this topic alive, and that was my point."
"Dancing Auschwitz" was shot in June 2009 and originally formed part of an exhibition at a Melbourne university.
It shows Korman, her 89-year-old father Adolk and her three children dancing in the infamous Nazi concentration camp, along with other sites linked to the Holocaust in Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic.
The footage ends with the elderly survivor describing the family’s visit as "really a historical moment."
While Korman said she began creating performance art in an effort to combat negative public perceptions about Jews and Israel, the most strident criticism of the clip had come from the Jewish community.
"There has been a range of opinions — most against," said Vic Alhadeff, chief executive of the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies.
"(Auschwitz) is the largest Jewish cemetery in the world, and many people believe it is inappropriate to dance in a cemetery."
Alhadeff said that while people could never presume to suggest to a Holocaust survivor how they should celebrate survival, there was a need to consider the feelings of other survivors.
"One has a right and a duty to celebrate survival, and there are infinite ways of celebrating this," he added.
Korman said she understood the response, but believed her intentions had been misunderstood.
"If I did it somewhere else it wouldn’t have the power to bring people to think, to contemplate about the Holocaust and to think about it, and to make the Holocaust alive in a fresh way."
Auschwitz was built by the Nazis regime in 1940 and became the largest centre for the extermination of Jewish people during the so-called "final solution of the Jewish question."
A total of 1.1 million people perished at the camp and it became an enduring symbol of the Holocaust.
The clip can be viewed at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3-641aScYw
