Jezebel: Holocaust

Retailer Apologizes For Featuring Holocaust-Themed Jacket

Irin Carmon — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 18:30:00 EDT

A day after we pointed out that an online fashion retailer, BuyDefinition, was selling a jacket named "Belsen was a gas," the company is apologizing and saying they'll pull the item. More »

Pro Tip: Don't Name Your Designer Clothing After A Concentration Camp

Irin Carmon — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 19:15:00 EDT

There seems no other explanation for this "Belsen was a gas" name for an Evil Twin jacket, other than it being a pun on Bergen-Belsen, a concentration camp where approximately 50,000 people were murdered. (And, not that it makes much of a difference, didn't even contain gas chambers.) But hey, it's on sale! Update: Yes, a Sex Pistols reference; that's no excuse. More »

Today In Ill-Advised Anne Frank Interpretations

Irin Carmon — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 14:17:28 EST

A fantasy of Jewish militarized revenge — like Inglourious Basterds! Sexing up a Holocaust victim who died at 15 — like everything else everywhere! The question is, are you Team Anne or Team Hitler? More »

Anne Frank's Story Published As Graphic Novel

Margaret Hartmann — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 09:20:00 EDT

Amsterdam's Anne Frank House Museum has published a graphic novel version of her story, aimed at teenagers. "Not everyone will read the diary," said a spokeswoman. "The one doesn't exclude the other." The U.S. edition comes out later this month. More »

Ingrid Newkirk Is The Worst Person In The World

Jenna Sauers — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:20:00 EST

PETA — the animal-rights organization whose media strategy seems to be three parts B-list celebrities, one part fake blood, and five parts boobies — co-founder Ingrid Newkirk wrote an op-ed today defending the use of "sexy women in our ads." More »

On Girls Who Loved Reading Anne Frank's Diary

Irin Carmon — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 15:40:00 EST

"As the girls who loved Anne Frank grew up, they became women who loved Miep Gies, and who hoped that they would do what she did, if ever they were asked to." [Washington Post] More »

Miep Gies, 1909-2010

Irin Carmon — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 09:40:00 EST

"[You don't have to] be a hero to do your human duty. I am afraid nobody would ever help other people, because who is a hero? I was not. I was just an ordinary housewife and secretary." [AP, NYT] More »

Teacher Invents Wallace/Gromit Brekky Machine • Aceh Considers Ban On Tight Trousers

Katy Kelleher — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:20:00 EDT

• Design teacher Yuri Suzuki has created this truly awesome breakfast machine, which automatically cooks omelets from scratch, toasts bread, and brews fresh coffee. Suzuki says he was inspired by Hollywood films, including Back to the Future. • More »

Memorial Day

Anna Holmes — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:10:00 EDT

[Kiev, September 27. Image via Getty]

Yale Murder Suspect "Extremely Controlling" • Study Says: Women Suck At Parking

Katy Kelleher — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:30:00 EDT

• A former girlfriend of Raymond Clark, the lab tech accused in the murder of Annie Le, told Good Morning America that Clark was "extremely controlling." She says dictated what clothes she wore, and who she could see. • More »

One Step Forward...

Anna Holmes — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 10:10:00 EDT

[Berlin, July 22. Image via Getty]

The Forest For The Trees

Anna Holmes — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:10:00 EDT

["Ljubelj South", Slovenia; June 5. Image via Getty]

Light A Candle

Anna Holmes — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 17:10:00 EDT

[Washington, D.C., April 21. Image via Getty]

Set Your TiVo: Amazing Woman Gets Her Due (Or, At Least Her TV Movie)

Sadie Stein — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:00:00 EDT

Irena Sendler is someone whose story really should be told: the woman saved 2,500 children during the Holocaust. More »

Tim Geithner Benefits From Being A Man In A Man's World

Megan Carpentier — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 10:00:00 EST

Tim Geithner and Todd Stern are in, Caroline Kennedy's out, Leon Panetta is delayed, Susan Rice is paying attention, and Holocaust deniers are cheering disrepair at Auschwitz. It's quite the Tuesday. More »

The new documentary Inheritance is about...

Margaret Hartmann — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:30:00 EST

The new documentary Inheritance is about the meeting between Monika Hertwig, daughter of brutal Nazi commander Amon Goeth (played by Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List), and Helen Jonas, who was forced to serve as Goeth's personal maid, more than a half century after Goeth was hanged for war crimes. In an NPR interview, Jonas explains that she was hesitant to meet with the daughter of the man who tortured her until Hertwig told her, "I know that it's very hard for you because it's hard for me as well, but we have to do it for the murdered people," in a letter. "I feel that she's a victim as well," said Jonas. "As sad as it was for me to tell her who her father was, I had to tell her the truth. She wanted to know the truth." The film will be on PBS as part of the POV series starting December 10. [NPR] More »

Complexée

Sadie Stein — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:40:00 EDT

We didn't know very much about Irène Némirovsky before her posthumous novel Suite Francaise was published recently. An émigré to Paris, Némirovsky achieved fame at 26 with her first novel David Gelder, but the book was reviled by many, who found its clichéd depiction of the Jewish protagonist anti-Semitic. The author later turned on her debut novel, but many found her disavowal — in the wake of her conversion to Catholicism — unconvincing. Némirovsky died in Auschwitz at the age of 39, leaving behind a controversial legacy and this haunting, newly-discovered portrait of occupied France. [Obit] More »

Literary Ladies Look Thirty Years Younger With The Right Makeover

Jessica G. — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:30:00 EDT

We always agreed with Angela Chase on My So-Called Life when she described Anne Frank as "lucky." Angela's English teacher asks her, "How could Anne Frank be lucky?" and Angela responds, "'Cause she was stuck in an attic for three years with this guy she really liked." That's the part of Anne Frank that people should be focusing on, not all that dreary, depressing Holocaust and death stuff. This month, Radar Magazine agrees with us, giving the bland, old Anne Frank cover a sexy new makeover! After the jump, check out the other fab makeover Radar gives to Holocaust bummer Sophie's Choice. Sophie might have to choose between her children, but she doesn't have to choose an outdated aesthetic! More »

Tom Ford To Bequeath His Devastatingly Attractive Genes To A Baby?

Jennifer — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 11:30:00 EDT

Oh lord: Tom Ford is having a baby in 2008. It will be "biologically" his, not his partner Richard Buckley's. "I don't want to get to 75 years old and just have made a lot of dresses, done some houses." In the same interview: "I don't find a guy's cock or a woman's vagina offensive; in fact, I find them beautiful." So will he be penetrating one to achieve this demonspawn? He probably won't be able to keep them off him! "I was having sex with girls when I was 14, and that was because they were pouncing on me." [Fashion Week Daily]

When we caught wind of the news of The Diary...

Jennifer — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 17:20:00 EST

When we caught wind of the news of The Diary of Anne Frank being turned into a musical we couldn't help channel Amy Winehouse's most famous lyric, "No, no, no." Anne Frank: The Musical will be produced by a Spanish theatre company in Madrid next month, with the blessing of the The Anne Frank Foundation, no less. The Anne Frank Foundation gets prickly about just who is allowed access to the memory of the Holocaust victim, having once told Steven Spielberg, of all people, that it would not permit him to tell his own version of her story. But some no-name Spaniards with a bustling piano score? That's okay? Priorities, people! [Guardian] More »

Liz Taylor: 1; descendants of Holocaust...

Jessica G. — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 18:45:00 EDT

Liz Taylor: 1; descendants of Holocaust survivors: 0. The Supreme Court ruled that Elizabeth Taylor gets to keep a Van Gogh painting that a Jewish family claimed was rightfully theirs. The matriarch of the family said that she was forced to sell "View of the Asylum and Chapel at Saint-Remy" as she was escaping Nazi Germany. The Court said the Jewish woman's family waited too long to bring their claims against La Taylor. [Washington Post] More »

I Am Not America's Next Top Model

Jennifer — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 17:30:00 EDT

As soon as I read the announcement last Monday, I could hear fate calling: The open casting calls for the next cycle of America's Next Top Model were coming to New York and I was coming to 'em! When I arrived at 8:30 am at the Park Central Hotel in Manhattan's Midtown West on Saturday, I was immediately met by a throng of girls. All sorts of girls: Fat girls, thin girls, Jersey girls, high school girls. It was like landing inside the Beastie Boys song! And all these girls were here, an hour and a half before the official start time, in hopes of being cast on the best and worst reality show of all time, that clusterfuck of Tyra Banks, eating disorders, cat fights, Tyra Banks, stolen granola bars, lesbian limo kisses, and, well, Tyra Banks. And so I hauled my ass out of bed at an ungodly hour to partake in the posing. This is my story. More »