There are several major aspects of

humor Humour ( Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids i ...

related to

the Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

: humor of the Jews in

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

and in Nazi concentration and extermination camps, a specific kind of "

gallows humor Black comedy, also known as black humor, bleak comedy, dark comedy, dark humor, gallows humor or morbid humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally ...

"; German humor on the subject during the Nazi era, and the appropriateness of

anti-Semitic Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...

off-color humor Off-color humor (also known as vulgar humor, crude humor, or shock humor) is humor that deals with topics that may be considered to be in poor taste or vulgar. Many comedic genres (including jokes, prose, poems, black comedy, blue comedy, insul ...

in the

modern era The modern era or the modern period is considered the current historical period of human history. It was originally applied to the history of Europe and Western history for events that came after the Middle Ages, often from around the year 1500 ...

Aspects of Holocaust humor

The 2011 book ''Dead Funny'' by Rudolph Herzog explores, among other things, the first two aspects: the humor of the oppressed and the humor of the oppressors."The Sound of Young America: Writer and Filmmaker Rudolph Herzog"
, transcript of the interview at the ''

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn Bullseye or Bull's Eye may refer to: Symbols * ◎ (Unicode U+25CE BULLSEYE), in the Geometric Shapes (Unicode block), Geometric Shapes Unicode block * (Unicode U+0298 LATIN LETTER BILABIAL CLICK), the phonetic symbol for bilabial click Animals ...

'' podcastMonica Osborne, "Springtime for Hitler", ''

The New Republic ''The New Republic'' (often abbreviated as ''TNR'') is an American magazine focused on domestic politics, news, culture, and the arts from a left-wing perspective. It publishes ten print magazines a year and a daily online platform. ''The New Y ...

'', August 21, 2011, a review of Herzog's book One of Herzog's points is that the German humor of the era reveals the extent to which ordinary German citizens were aware of the atrocities of the regime. , a pioneer in Holocaust humor research, maintained that humor was a defense mechanism that helped to endure the atrocities of the Holocaust. She wrote that until recently the question of humor in concentration camps was little known to the general public and had little attention in scientific community. Among many reasons for this was the common belief that the discussion of humor in the Holocaust may be seen as diminishing the Holocaust, hurting the feelings of the inmates, and trivializing the issue of extermination - if it was possible to laugh, then it was not so terrible after all. Another reason is the reluctance of the survivors to recall harsh memories associated with the unnatural circumstances that evoked humor. Also, the scholars treated humor to be only of second importance in the life of Holocaust survivors. In 2009

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem (; ) is Israel's official memorial institution to the victims of Holocaust, the Holocaust known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (). It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; echoing the stories of the ...

published a book in Hebrew "Without humor we would have committed suicide". In 2014 it was published also in English "It kept us alive: humor as a defense mechanism in the Holocaust". In this book you can find interviews with 55 Holocaust survivors, carried out by Dr. Ostrower where the main question was "Can you describe or tell us about humor in the Holocaust?"
הומור כמנגנון הגנה בשואה
Humor as a defense mechanism in the Holocaust"/ref>

Terrence Des Pres Terrence Des Pres (1939 – November 16, 1987) was an American writer and Holocaust scholar. Life Terrence Des Pres was born in Effingham, Illinois in 1939. He graduated from Southeast Missouri State College in 1962. He went on to graduate ...

Sander Gilman Sander L. Gilman, (born February 21, 1944), is an American cultural and literary historian. He is known for his contributions to Jewish studies and the history of medicine. He is the author or editor of over one hundred books. Gilman's focus is ...

, and

Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi (; born October 31, 1942) is Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Early life and education Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi is the daughter of Janet and Herman DeKoven. Her mother was a socia ...

were among the first scholars to consider the appropriateness of humor about the Holocaust and who has the right to tell Holocaust jokes. Considering the jokes about the Holocaust, one has to distinguish the "gallows humor", i.e., the humor of the victims, from the humor of the oppressors of the particular social group, which is called "executioner's humor" by

Alan Dundes Alan Dundes (September 8, 1934 – March 30, 2005) was an American folklorist. He spent much of his career as a professional academic at the University of California, Berkeley and published his ideas in a wide range of books and articles. He ...

.. The "gallows humor" is a

coping mechanism Coping refers to conscious or unconscious strategies used to reduce and manage unpleasant emotions. Coping strategies can be cognitions or behaviors and can be individual or social. To cope is to deal with struggles and difficulties in life. I ...

, while "executioner's humor" is an instrument of aggression.

Holocaust humor of Nazi ghettos and camps

Viktor Frankl Viktor Emil Frankl (; 26 March 1905 – 2 September 1997) was an Austrian neurologist, psychologist, philosopher, and The Holocaust, Holocaust survivor, who founded logotherapy, a school of psychotherapy that describes a search for a life's mean ...

, a psychiatrist and a

Holocaust survivor Holocaust survivors are people who survived the Holocaust, defined as the persecution and attempted annihilation of the Jews by Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, its collaborators before and during World War II ...

of the

Auschwitz concentration camp Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 Nazi concentration camps, concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) d ...

in his 1946 book ''

Man's Search for Meaning ''Man's Search for Meaning'' () is a 1946 book by Viktor Frankl chronicling his experiences as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps during World War II, and describing his psychotherapeutic method, which involved identifying a purpose to eac ...

'' wrote: "To discover that there was any semblance of art in a concentration camp must be surprise enough for an outsider, but he may be even more astonished to hear that one could find a sense of humor there as well; of course, only the faint trace of one, and then only for a few seconds or minutes. Humor was another of the soul's weapons in the fight for self-preservation"... "The attempt to develop a sense of humor and to see things in a humorous light is some kind of a trick learned while mastering the art of living." Frankl further gives an example of humor in dreary circumstances. They were being transported to another camp and the train was approaching the bridge across the

Danube The Danube ( ; see also #Names and etymology, other names) is the List of rivers of Europe#Longest rivers, second-longest river in Europe, after the Volga in Russia. It flows through Central and Southeastern Europe, from the Black Forest sou ...

. Over the river was the Mauthausen death camp. "Those who have never seen anything similar cannot possibly imagine the dance of joy performed in the carriage by the prisoners when they saw that our transport was not crossing the bridge and was instead heading ''only'' for

Dachau Dachau (, ; , ; ) was one of the first concentration camps built by Nazi Germany and the longest-running one, opening on 22 March 1933. The camp was initially intended to intern Hitler's political opponents, which consisted of communists, s ...

." When the inmates learned that there was no

crematorium A crematorium, crematory or cremation center is a venue for the cremation of the Death, dead. Modern crematoria contain at least one cremator (also known as a crematory, retort or cremation chamber), a purpose-built furnace. In some countries a ...

in the camp, they "laughed and cracked jokes in spite of, and during, all we had to go through." "An abnormal response to an abnormal situation is in the nature of normal behavior". Chaya Ostrower recognized three major categories of jokes in the book of interviews, ''Without Humor We Would Have Committed Suicide'': self-humor, black humor, and humor about food. She noticed that food jokes were unique for the Holocaust period. Self-humour: One of the interviewees in ''Without Humor...'' was telling about their hair being cut upon arrival to Auschwitz. Many women were crying, but she started laughing. When asked why, she answered that never in her life had she had a hairdo for free.

Black humor Black comedy, also known as black humor, bleak comedy, dark comedy, dark humor, gallows humor or morbid humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally ...

was a means of reducing anxiety of the awareness of death. An example well-known in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

: "Moishe, why are you using soap with so much fragrance?" - "When they turn me into soap, at least I will smell good". Jokes about soap were in response to rumors which started circulating in 1942 about soap produced from the fat of the Jews. Other jokes of this kind: "See you again on the same shelf!" or "Don't eat much: the Germans will have less soap!"Sover, Arie. 2021. Jewish Humor: An outcome of Historical Experience, Survival, and Wisdom. London: Cambridge Scholars
, Section "Jewish Humor in the Holocaust"
pp. 139-142
Humor about food constituted about 7 percent of humor discussed in the study. The interviewees mention that there was lots of humor about food, because food was a common subject, because there was always not enough of it. An interviewee recalls: there was a group which liked to discuss recipes. Suddenly one of them lost her mood and stopped talking. "What's wrong with her?" - "I think her cake has burned". The Holocaust-era archive clandestinely collected by a team led by Holocaust victim

Emmanuel Ringelblum Emanuel Ringelblum (November 21, 1900 – March 10 (most likely), 1944) was a Polish-Jewish historian, politician and social worker, known for his ''Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto'', ''Notes on the Refugees in Zbąszyn'' chronicling the deportat ...

Ringelblum Archive The Ringelblum Archive is a collection of documents from the World War II Warsaw Ghetto, collected and preserved by a group known by the codename Oyneg Shabbos (in Modern Israeli Hebrew, Oneg Shabbat; ), led by Jewish historian Emanuel Ringelblum. ...

") documented the everyday life in Nazi-organized Jewish ghettos, in particular, the

Warsaw Ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto (, officially , ; ) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the Nazi Germany, German authorities within the new General Government territory of Occupat ...

. Among other things, the archive documented the humor perspective of the inhumane Jewish life. The archive includes jokes about Poles, Nazis, Hitler, Stalin, etc. A good deal of them were self-jokes about life, death, disease, hunger, and humiliation. Joseph Wulf in "Vom Leben. Kampf und Tod im Ghetto Warsau" cites a number of black jokes from diaries of Warsaw ghetto residents, such as:

Modern times

Telling Holocaust jokes in public may be illegal in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

Anti-Semitism

Demonstrating that Holocaust humor is international, Dundes and Hauschild cite two versions of a joke recorded in Germany and the United States in the early 1980s: "How many Jews will fit a

Volkswagen Volkswagen (VW; )English: , . is a German automotive industry, automobile manufacturer based in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Established in 1937 by German Labour Front, The German Labour Front, it was revitalized into the global brand it ...

" – "506: six in the seats and 500 in the ashtrays". Dundes, Alan, and Thomas Hauschild. “Auschwitz Jokes.” In: ''Humour in Society'', C. Powell and G.E.C. Paton (eds., 1988,
excerpt: pp.56, 57
)

Admissibility of Holocaust humor

In a 1988 article "Holocaust Laughter",

argues that "a comic response is more resilient, more effective in revolt against terror and the sources of terror than a response that is solemn or tragic". Adam Muller and Amy Freier note that in modern times increasingly many people are becoming comfortable joking about the Holocaust. They attribute this, among other reasons, to the fact that since the generation of

s had passed, and there is no more witnesses of the atrocities, who could provide emotional firsthand testimonies. Nevertheless the "Holocaust etiquette" prescribes to consider it as a unique, solemn and, to a degree, sacred event, and laughter related to the matter disrupts this convention and is viewed as bad taste. Some other people see modern Holocaust "comedy as a vehicle for coming to terms with the memory of Nazis' horrors".ADAM MULLER, AMY FREIER
"HUMOUR, THE HOLOCAUST, AND THE TERROR OF HISTORY"
''AMERICANA'', E-JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES IN HUNGARY, VOLUME XIII, NUMBER 1, SPRING 2017

Public controversies

*2009: Despite being Jewish herself,

Roseanne Barr Roseanne Cherrie Barr (born November 3, 1952), also known mononymously as Roseanne, is an American actress, comedian, writer, and producer. She began her career in stand-up comedy before gaining acclaim in the television sitcom ''Roseanne'' (19 ...

was heavily criticized for her photo-shot of Hitler with a tray of "burnt Jew cookies" for a satirical Jewish magazine ''

Heeb ''Heeb'' is an American Jews, Jewish website (and from 2001 to 2010, a quarterly magazine) aimed predominantly at young Jews. The name of the publication is a reference to the ethnic slur "heeb", an abbreviation of Hebrew. However, in this case ...

''. * 2016:

Katie Waissel Katie Waissel (born 24 January 1986) is an English singer-songwriter who came into the public eye when she was the tenth contestant eliminated in the seventh series of ''The X Factor''. She is also known for being a housemate in ''Celebrity Bi ...

competed in the British reality series ''

Celebrity Big Brother 18 ''Celebrity Big Brother 18'' was the eighteenth series of the British reality television series ''Celebrity Big Brother'', hosted by Emma Willis and narrated by Marcus Bentley. The series launched on 28 July 2016, just two days after the conclus ...

'' in 2016. Housemate

Christopher Biggins Christopher Biggins (born 16 December 1948) is an English actor and television personality. He became widely known for his roles in television series such as ''Porridge'', '' Poldark'' and '' I, Claudius'' in the 1970s. He later became known for ...

was removed after making a racist joke about the Holocaust towards Waissel, who is Jewish. * 2020:

Concerns and controversies at the 2020 Summer Olympics A number of concerns and controversies arose leading up to the 2020 Summer Olympics, which took place in Tokyo, Japan. The games were postponed until July 2021 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan, COVID-19 pandemic. The IOC stated t ...

: On 21 July 2021, Japanese media reported that

Kentarō Kobayashi is a Japanese comedian, actor, dramaturge, theatre director, and manga artist. Outside Japan, he is most well known for directing and acting in "" videos (e.g. ""), and for playing the Mac (opposite Jin Katagiri who plays the PC) in the "Get A ...

, who was the director of the opening and closing ceremonies, utilized

The Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

in a script for his comedy in 1998, and he made malicious and anti-Semitic jokes including "Let's play Jews genocide game (Let's play Holocaust)." After that Kobayashi was dismissed by the Olympic Committee. * 2022: British comedian

Jimmy Carr James Anthony Patrick Carr (born 15 September 1972) is an Irish-British comedian, presenter, writer and actor. He is known for his rapid-fire deadpan delivery of One-line joke, one-liners. He began his comedy career in 1997, and he has regula ...

received a significant amount of backlash after saying that the

Romani Holocaust The Romani Holocaust was the genocide of European Roma and Sinti people during World War II. Beginning in 1933, Nazi Germany systematically persecuted the European Roma, Sinti and other peoples pejoratively labeled 'Gypsy' through forcible ...

was a "positive" during his

Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...

comedy special, ''His Dark Material''. Carr's remarks were widely condemned by Holocaust memorial and anti-racism charities, as well as by a number of politicians in the UK, with calls for Netflix to remove the special from its library.

In film

* ''

The Bloom of Yesterday ''The Bloom of Yesterday'' () is a 2016 German-Austrian comedy film directed by Chris Kraus. Cast Reception The film won the Grand Prize and the Audience Award at the 2016 Tokyo International Film Festival and subsequently won several awa ...

'' (2016) * '' The Last Laugh'' (2016), a documentary which explored the limits of humor regarding the Holocaust * ''

Jakob the Liar ''Jakob the Liar'' is a 1999 American-made Holocaust film directed by Peter Kassovitz, produced by Steven Haft and Marsha Garces Williams. It is written by Kassovitz and Didier Decoin based on the 1969 German novel '' Jacob the Liar'', by Je ...

'' (1999) * ''

La Vita è Bella ''Life Is Beautiful'' (, ) is a 1997 Italian period comedy-drama film directed by and starring Roberto Benigni, who co-wrote the film with Vincenzo Cerami. Benigni plays Guido Orefice, a Jewish Italian bookshop owner, who employs his imaginat ...

'' (''Life Is Beautiful'') (1997)Film review: Viano, Maurizio (1999), "''Life is Beautiful'': Reception, Allegory and Holocaust Laughter", *''Annali d’Italianistica'', no. 17, pp 155-173;
also printed
in ''Jewish Social Studies'', vol. 5, no. 3, 1999, pp. 47-63;
a different version published
in ''Film Quarterly'', vol. 53, no. 1, 1999, pp. 26-34, Alan R. Perry, "Benigni's "La vita è bella":

and the Alchemy of Meaning", ''Italica'', vol. 96, no.2, 2019, pp. 303-330, Sander L. Gilman, "Can the Shoah Be Funny? Some Thoughts on Recent and Older Films", ''Critical Inquiry'', Vol. 26, No. 2 (Winter, 2000), pp. 279-308, , Millicent Marcus, "The Seriousness of Humor in

Roberto Benigni Roberto Remigio Benigni ( , ; born 27 October 1952) is an Italian actor, comedian, screenwriter, and film director. He gained international recognition for writing, directing, and starring in the Holocaust comedy drama film ''Life Is Beautifu ...

's ''Life Is Beautiful''", In: '' After Fellini: National Cinema in the Postmodern Age'', pp. 268-284 * '' Train of Life'' (1998) * ''

Europa, Europa ''Europa Europa'' (, lit., "Hitler Youth Salomon") is a 1990 historical war drama film directed by Agnieszka Holland, and starring Marco Hofschneider, Julie Delpy, Hanns Zischler, and André Wilms. It is based on the 1989 autobiography of Solom ...

'' (1990)