The Auschwitz Memorial and other anti-hate organizations have condemned British-Irish comedian Jimmy Carr for a remark about the Gypsy and Roma people slaughtered by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust.
In the Netflix stand-up comedy special “His Dark Material,” Carr said: “When people talk about the Holocaust, they talk about the tragedy of 6 million Jewish lives being lost to the Nazi war machine. But they never mention the thousands of Gypsies that were killed by the Nazis.”
“No one ever wants to talk about that, because no one ever wants to talk about the positives,” Carr added. The audience can then be heard laughing and clapping.
The special debuted on Netflix on Dec. 25, but the comment received wider attention after a clip circulated on social media on Friday.
In the full special and not included in the clip circulating online, Carr went to defend the remark as a “very good joke.” He called it “educational” because “a lot of people don’t know … that the Nazis also killed in their thousands, gypsies, homosexuals, disabled people and Jehovah’s Witnesses.”
In a tweet Friday morning, the Auschwitz Memorial implored Carr to “learn about fate of some 23 thousand Roma and Sinti deported to Auschwitz,” linking to an online lesson and a podcast episode on the subject.
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