Tuesday,
May 30, 2006
3 Sivan, 5766

News

France

UK

Germany

Western
Europe

Eastern
Europe

EU-Israel
affairs

Voices

Culture

In Depth

On
Anglo Jewry

The Calendar

Links

Cartoons

advertisement

Dutch creator of
hoax Auschwitz rave sentenced to community service

Updated: 26/May/2006
14:10

Page tools

Email to friend

Print this page

Bookmark this
page

AMSTERDAM (AFP/EJP) --- A student
who used images of the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz in a hoax
publicity video for a techno rave circulated on the internet was sentenced
to 40 hours of community service by a Dutch court, the ANP news agency
reported Wednesday.

Dickie Thijssen, 23, last year made the
clip that purported to give details of a techno music festival called
"Housewitz", a reference to techno "house" music.

The magistrate
ruled Wednesday that the film was "insulting and offensive"and that the
rules of artistic freedom have been infringed.

It used images of
the Auschwitz death camp in German-occupied Poland, turning the famous
slogan above the main gate "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work Shall Set You Free)
into "Tanzen Macht Frei" (Dance Shall Set You Free).

The clip also
showed images of the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau where 1.1 million
people were killed during WWII, mostly European Jews.

Related Articles

Clip makes fun of the Holocaust

'Auschwitz clip' causes offence

'Housewitz' producer might be
prosecuted

The film
said the dance party would take place in The Netherlands on May 4, the day
on which the nation commemorates victims of war, but was in any event a
hoax since no such party was ever planned or held.

The film was
met with outrage by the Dutch justice ministry, the Auschwitz museum and
the Polish foreign ministry.

Thijssen told the court that he had
never intended for the film -- which he qualified as "very, very, very
black humour"-- to be widely circulated on the internet.

When he
discovered that it generated immense attention he took it off his website
and issued an apology online, but by then the clip was already posted on
several other websites in the Netherlands and Poland.

He repeated
in court that he was sorry and with hindsight conceded that he had gone
too far when he made the film, ANP said.

In August 2005, the Dutch
Internet-regulating body decided to bring charges against the site that
was putting out the video.

But the weblog geenstijl.nl refused to
remove the clip with a so called ‘educational’ argument: “This clip shows
how our educational system has failed.”

Email to friend

Print this page

Bookmark this page

Day in history

30 May 1096
Crusaders reached Cologne
and found the gate to the city closed by order of the bishop. Of all
the Jewish communities in the path of the Crusaders, Cologne’s Jews
were the only ones to escape total destruction.

Latest Articles

Polish president
pledges 'zero tolerance' for anti-Semitism

European press
criticizes Pope for faulting to blame Germany for
Holocaust

Black extremists
threaten Jews in Paris

Israeli survivor of
the 1972 Munich Olympics speaks in London

Petition launched
against UK Academic boycott of Israel

French priest
receives Jewish prize

A Greek rest home
for European elderly Jews

Home | About | Subscribe | Donate | Search | Contact

Copyright ©
2001-2006 | powered by D3 Digital
Media