Joan Rivers' Holocaust Comment Sets Off Fury; Comedienne Refuses to Apologize
Joan Rivers has again issued a controversial statement that she refuses to apologize for. Rivers made a joke about the Holocaust, which struck a wrong note with the public and the Anti-Defamation League. She still refuses to apologize, though, and maintains she said nothing wrong.
"The last time a German looked this hot was when they were pushing Jews into the ovens," Rivers said on the set of her show, "Fashion Police." She was commenting on a dress worn by Heidi Klum, and no one else made any comments contradicting Rivers' claim.
The comment did not go unnoticed by the public and by the Anti-Defamation League.
"Of all people, Joan Rivers should know better," ADL president Abraham Foxman told The New York Daily Post. "This remark is so vulgar and offensive to all Jews and Holocaust survivors, and indeed to all Americans, that we cannot believe it made it to the airwaves. Making it worse, not one of her co-hosts made any effort to respond or to condemn this hideous statement."
"My husband lost the majority of his family at Auschwitz," Rivers replied. "And I can assure you that I have always made it a point to remind people of the Holocaust through humor."
"There are certain things about the Holocaust that should be taboo. This is especially true for Jews, for whom the Holocaust is still a deeply painful memory," Foxman countered. "It is vulgar and offensive for anybody to use the death of six million Jews and millions of others in the Holocaust to make a joke, but this is especially true for someone who is Jewish and who proudly and publicly wears her Jewishness on her sleeve."
It's not the first time that Rivers has found herself the subject of scorn by the ADL. She was heavily criticized in August for comparing the superstore Costco to the Nazi party for refusing to carry her book in their stores.
