Informant was a 19 year old male student who I chatted with during our Russian Modern Art class. He’s a Film and Television Production Major.

Joke:

You know I find it very offensive when you talk about the Holocaust so casually. You know, my father died in the Holocaust. He fell from his Nazi guard tower.

Collector: Ookay…wow. So who told you this joke?

Informant: I heard it from a friend of mine who was well known for saying incredibly offensive things.

Collector: Oh, I see. Did it just stick in your mind because of that?

Informant: It’s an interesting idea to humanize a Nazi. While history puts a sinister face on the Nazi (and understandably so), one has to remember every Nazi official was someone’s Dad or Grandfather. The thought is strange, but still very interesting. It’s always stuck with me.

This joke is interesting because, true enough, it does demonstrate a perspective that people rarely think about. It’s not thought about because in the greater scheme of things, the acts that these people committed were atrocious, but even so, they are human and this joke reminds us of that in an offensive humorous manner. It’s the dark, death humor we discussed in class, that sometimes people joke around about serious things in order to distance themselves from the events.