February 02, 2021
Gfriend member Sowon shared photos of herself posing with a Nazi dummy on her personal Instagram account.
Instagram/onedayxne
A member of K-pop girl group Gfriend has come under fire for sharing pictures of herself posing with a mannequin wearing a Nazi uniform.
On Jan 31, Sowon (whose real name is Kim So-jung) shared two images of herself posing with the mannequin on Instagram. She deleted the photos shortly after, but outrage spread online, with many accusing the singer of insensitivity and alleged anti-Semitism.
Sowon’s name and other terms related to the situation trended worldwide on Twitter shortly after she posted the images, and on Monday (Feb 1) the incident trended on South Korean portal sites as news outlets in the country reported on the blowback from international K-pop fans.
âThe Holocaust is a harsh reminder of the consequences of unchecked hatred and the fragility of societies.â
Those words, spoken last week by Sara Bloomfield, director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in observance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, recall how absolutely and completely horrible people can become when a hate-filled, narcissistic leader convinces the masses to abandon humanity.
The hate is palpable to visitors of places like Auschwitz-Birkenou, even as comprehending the depths of barbarism is impossible.
When you have walked on the same road where hundreds of thousands of human beings emerged from boxcars so crowded that it was a challenge even to draw a breath, your heart aches trying to make any sense of the way one person can treat another.
The Holocaust Memorial Center Zekelman Family
Campus is hosting How Healers Became Killers, Nazi Medical Professionals, to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Wednesday, January 27. The program also is the opening event of the new featured exhibit, Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race, which opens January 17 and is slated to run until July 11, 2021.
“We are proud to host this thought-provoking exhibit and opening program which scrutinizes the complicity medical professionals had in the Holocaust,” said Holocaust Memorial Center CEO Rabbi Eli Mayerfeld. “The most important lesson we teach is that history is made through a
series of choices and that every choice has a consequence. By teaching the lessons of the Holocaust, our fervent hope is that each of us will be upstanders, not bystanders, when we witness wrongful actions.”
UNFAIR “CONCENTRATION CAMPS” COMPARISONS: IS THERE ANYTHING JEWISH LEFT ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST?
If the British invented concentration camps, the Nazis redefined them as the epitome of pure evil. Unfortunately, current encyclopedias and organizations fall short of making the distinction between Nazi and other camps. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) defines concentration camps as a place in which “people are detained or confined, usually under harsh conditions and without regard to legal norms of arrest and imprisonment that are acceptable in a constitutional democracy.” This description may be applicable to generic camps but does not begin to define the Jewish experience under Nazi concentration camps. The United Nations provides a more rounded description of Nazi camps by outlining two points: “Unlike other groups, Nazis sought to murder every Jew everywhere, regardless of age, gender, beliefs, or actions, and they invoked a modern government bureaucracy t
Understand history so it’s not repeated.
We’ve all heard variations of that edict many times. The biggest event it is paired with, of course, is the Nazi Holocaust.
When major news events happen, I like to search for news photos, and that’s exactly what I did when the mob descended on the U.S. Capitol a couple of weeks ago.
I am always amazed by the bravery of photographers who knowingly put themselves in the middle of precarious situations. The in-the-moment intensity of a still photo speaks to me. For me, it is true that a picture is worth a thousand words.