The Simpsons go to Auschwitz

Source: News.com.au, January 23, 2015

An Italian artist and activist has ‘Simpsonised’ the Holocaust in a series of unsettling cartoons.

aleXsandro Palombo redrew the beloved Simpson characters as Jews in Auschwitz to mark the 70th anniversary of the concentration camp’s liberation.

He said the project, called ‘Never Again’, is “an invitation to reflection, an artwork to raise awareness, an indictment against intolerance, a punch to inhumanity.”

One image shows Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie emaciated in a gas chamber, while another has the cartoon family looking dejected behind a barbed wire fence.

“We must educate the new generations and tell them what happened. We have to do it without filters, bluntly, over and over again, through the memory of facts and terrifying images that reflect the horror of the Holocaust and the extermination of millions of human beings,” the satirical artist explained.

Palombo continued: “Only the awareness of the horror of that period can create the anticorps to prevent anti-Semitism to spread again. Auschwitz-Birkenau is the symbol of this inhumane delirium, the industry of death. It is only through memory that we are able to fight racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia and all forms of intolerance that threaten the society, our the freedom and the respect for all diversity.”

This is not the first time Palombo has redrawn The Simpsons or other popular cartoons to make a political statement.

In November, the artist redrew famous female animated characters, including Marge Simpson, as domestic violence victims for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

Graphic illustrations of characters such as Snow White, Ariel and Cinderella with bloodied, bruised faces being bashed by their partners went viral.

In the aftermath of this month’s Charlie Hebdo massacre, Palombo shared numerous political cartoons supporting the victims as well as freedom of speech.

They Spoke Out: American Voices of Protest Against the Holocaust

Source: Susan Karlin, Using Comics to Educate about the Holocaust, Co.Create, July 19, 2013.

For several years, legendary comic illustrator Neil Adams and Holocaust historian Rafael Medoff have partnered on projects that use comics and animation to teach about the Nazi genocide.

Their first DVD–They Spoke Out: American Voices of Protest Against the Holocaust–debuts at San Diego Comic-Con with an exclusive July 19 screening and panel discussion with Adams and Medoff. Episodes can be viewed at TheySpokeOut.com, and the DVD will be on sale at booths 1709 and 1829, where Adams will be signing copies.

“We’re not throwing the Holocaust at you,” says Adams. “We’re offering a way to help American kids experience the Holocaust through these videos, so they can make their own decisions as to how deeply they want to go into further study.”

Created by Disney Educational Productions and the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studiesin Washington, D.C., it features six 10-minute motion comic episodes illustrated and mostly narrated by Adams–best known for his dynamic style and work on Batman and X-Men–and written by Medoff, the Wyman Institute director and author of 14 books. The episodes blend traditional animation and comic book-style illustrations with newsreel footage, photographs, and historical documents.

“Teens raised on YouTube, video games, and other visual media are likely to be more receptive to comic books about the Holocaust than heavy textbooks about the Holocaust,” says Medoff. “This presents today’s educators with a whole new set of challenges.”

One episode, Messenger from Hell, is narrated by former Marvel Comics chairman Stan Lee, cocreator of Spider-Man, Hulk, and the Fantastic Four.Messenger tells the story of a Polish courier, Jan Karski, who smuggled himself into the Warsaw Ghetto and the outskirts of the Belzec death camp, then risked his life to bring the news of the Holocaust to the free world. The DVD release coincides with the 70th anniversary of Karski’s meeting at the White House with President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Another episode is The Dina Babbitt Story about a teenage cartoonist and future Warner Brothers animator who survived Auschwitz by painting prisoner portraits for Josef Mengele. Before Babbitt died in 2009, Adams and Medoff (along with the late comic legend Joe Kubert) attempted to retrieve her art from The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum in Poland, by auctioning original artwork by noted comic illustrators to earn money for her legal bills.

“My work with Neal Adams began when I approached him about Dina Babbitt’s struggle–she was an artist fighting for the return of her original art,” says Medoff. “Neal had led the courageous and successful fight in the 1970s to convince comic book publishers to return original art to the artists. As Neal and I were talking about ways to help publicize Dina’s cause, he said, ‘Let’s do a comic strip about it.’ The strip was called The Last Outrage and was published by Marvel. That brought a tremendous amount of attention to Dina’s plight. Then Disney Educational Productions suggested making The Last Outrage into a motion comic, which led to the They Spoke Out series.”

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