Spain: At another carnival, dancers equate Jews and Nazis alongside train and Auschwitz floats

Via JTA:

A second carnival in Spain has referenced the Holocaust with Nazi and concentration camp prisoner uniform costumes. The theme was “the same.”

The Holocaust-themed display at the Feb. 23 event in Badajos occurred amid debate on the appropriateness of festive parades apparently making light of the murder of millions of Jews and Romanis by the Nazis. That was spurred by processions the same week in Belgium and in Campo de Criptana, a town about 80 miles south of Madrid.

In Badajos, which is about 200 miles southwest of Madrid, dozens of participants marched on the main street. […]

Though the Badajos procession prompted less criticism than other events, it went further in equating Nazis and their victims. The show included a banner emblazoned with a swastika locked inside a Star of David

. There were flags bearing only the swastika and other flags with the German-language word for Jew appearing inside a Star of David. Dozens of the display’s participants danced ecstatically as they waved those symbols and others to the rhythm of the sound of a train gaining speed as onlookers cheered and applauded them. Behind them, men in prisoner uniforms pushed a float shaped like a giant train with musicians.

The group that put on the show, Los Mismos — Spanish for “the same” — is one of Badajo’s most popular and specializes in amusing juxtapositions. Their previous acts included space monkeys and astronauts and pirates who were also colonial discoverers.

Some of the Badajos show’s participants were dressed in costumes with blue and white vertical stripes, evoking the uniform of Nazi concentration camp prisoners, with a Star of David emblazoned on the backside.

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