Mocking victims of the Holocaust has never been funny

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Punching down on an oppressed and persecuted minority is not a joke. It has deadly social consequences (Getty Images)

“We used to call them jokes and people would laugh,” said Jimmy Carr, defending his “joke” in which he described the Nazi genocide of Roma people as a “positive” part of the fascist regime. Mocking victims of the Holocaust has never, ever, been funny and punching down on an oppressed and persecuted minority is not a joke. It has deadly social consequences.

Carr’s trivialisation of the Porajmos – the “Devouring” – which saw 500,000 Roma and Sinti people murdered by the Nazis is the sort of racist filth masquerading as “comedy” that many of us hoped had now died.

Sasha Simic