Aussie Academic Slams Broadcasters' Holocaust "Joke"

"Dude, if you don't like the show, just don't listen. It's profoundly easy."  Thus tweeted Melbourne Triple J radio host Tom Ballard in response to a listener's outrage regarding a sick segment in the radio show he co-hosts with Alex Dyson which makes fun out of the extermination camps of the Final Solution.

As Dr Dvir Abramovich, Director of the Centre for Jewish History and Culture at the University of Melbourne, writes:

"Maybe Tom and Alex can explain to us what is remotely funny about the gassing of millions of men, women and children and the burning of their bodies?

Perhaps if the two visited the death camps of Auschwitz, where 1.5 million people were exterminated, where mothers with their babies clutched to their breasts went into the gas chambers, they could enlighten us about the humour in it.

What right do Tom and Alex have to re-traumatise survivors [of whom there are many in Melbourne, although of course their numbers steadily dwindle from year to year] and trample on their feelings? They, and the producers of the show, should have known that the horrors of the Holocaust must be approached with respect and sensitivity and that there is nothing funny about Hitler.

Would they have made played the same game if their grandparents, parents, siblings or uncles were executed and their naked corpses incinerated in the ovens?"

Ballard has since issued an apology, but as Abramovich observes:

"Triple J may think that any publicity is good publicity and will lure listeners. But yesterday's hurtful and sickening prank showcases a disturbing abdication of responsible judgment and a troubling lack of sensitivity.

Was there not a single person to tell them that this was a terrible idea, that there was no humour to be milked from mass murder, that trivialising genocide for outrageous comic pay-off is inexcusable and will be a kick in the stomach to survivors?"

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