It’s maybe not what you’d expect to see but we’d advise Just Jew It and visit a Jewish Quarter on World Holocaust Day.
And the biggest synagogue in Europe in Dohany Street in Budapest.
And learn how the Hungarian capital was bled of its Jewish population.
With half a million citizens sent to die in Auschwitz-Burkenau, the largest number from any single city in the Holocaust.
All of which is laid out in minute and everyday detail.
In the Quarter’s museum and honoured in the architecture and tributes around Dohany,
Been there bought the T-shirt
Of course, the greatest answer to the ravages of the Holocaust is for the survivors and their descendants to live a good and full life.
And that means celebrating your heritage.
Which we discover when we visit that the Jews of Hungary do with self-effacing humour.
With T-shirts and mugs of the famous Michael Jordan leaping logo with Just Jew It written on them.
It is a side of Jewish people which most will not reflect on today.
But we are reminded of one of the most memorable and heart-rending scenes in any film on the Holocaust.
Life Is Beautiful
From La Vita E Bella (Life is Beautiful) when father Guido uses humour to protect son Giusue’s innocence.
Explaining that the signposts ‘No Jews, No Dogs’ and we are reminded that similar prohibitions throughout history have included ‘No Irish’ are a joke too.
And that when they will go on to open a bookstore they will erect a sign saying ‘No Visigoths, no Spiders.’
And by joking that the rules of the camp are a game.
Where you can accumulate points by obeying the draconic, inhumane regulations.
While when the guards come for Guido at the climax for execution and he sees Giusue hiding in a box.
He deflects with wit by winking at him and goosestepping.
The humanity of humour
That people use gallows humour in their worst moments is a uniquely human coping mechanism.
And one which Jews have consistently turned to in the face of victimisation.
With Mel Brooks ridiculing Hitler and anti-semitism and Woody Allen celebrating the eccentricities of his own culture.
While a list of great Jewish comedians rolls off the tongue.
Jackie Mason, George Burns, Groucho Marx, Rodney Dangerfield and Joan Rivers.
To today’s powerhouses of Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, Sarah Silverman, Adam Sandler, Billy Crystal, Sacha Baron Cohen and Jerry Sadowitz.
World Holocaust Day is, as it should be, a difficult one for us to get through.
None more so than those Jews, Gypsies and other cultures who suffered more than most.
But this year I will reflect on the shared humanity of humour.
Which I encountered in that small piece of Jewish-American fusion of culture I saw in the Magyar capital by the Danube, complete with its emotional shoes statue.
