Fashion Shoot At The Holocaust Memorial

An image from the controversial shoot.

Someone did a fashion shoot in the Holocaust memorial in Berlin. Of course, scandal followed, the magazine pulled it from their website, the airline distributing the magazine pulled the magazine, everybody apologized, etc.

The shoot makes a lot of sense. The memorial in Berlin is a huge tourist destination, especially for American Jews (of which I am one), who like to tell each other that they went there. American Jews are also very fond of telling each other that they went to the Holocaust memorial in any city that has one, such as Jerusalem or Washington, D.C.

Going to Holocaust memorials, and talking about going to Holocaust memorials, carries with it a cultural currency. It’s a cool thing to do. It implies sophistication, education, and a progressive attitude. This is especially true of the memorial in Berlin, the existence of which implies that the world is not the same place it was just a few decades previous. If you are an American Jew, (or even an American non-Jew with Jewish friends), then you can’t travel to Berlin and not go to the Holocaust memorial. No doubt it’s a great place to run into Jewish friends, just like Chinese restaurants and movie theaters are in the Midwest on Christmas day.
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