Main Piece:

“My favorite holocaust joke, it’s actually appropriate. A man, he’s in heaven, and the man goes to meet god, and he tells god a holocaust joke, and god doesn’t laugh, so he says ‘I guess you had to be there!’” 

Context:

The informant is my friend. He is a sophomore at UC Berkeley and is Jewish. The Holocaust was the mass genocide of Jewish people, alongside others, during World War II. This information was collected during a FaceTime call.

Analysis:

Holocaust jokes are categorized by some as “edgy humor” while for others they are considered to be an unspeakable crime. Personally, the only people who have ever recited Holocaust jokes to my face are other Jewish people. The punchline of this joke is that the man telling it to God died during the Holocaust. Even though it feels wrong and disrespectful, there is something liberating about telling jokes that poke fun at the suffering of your own group and laughing at it as a community. I would feel differently if a non-Jew told one to me, because as a member of the out-group, they haven’t had the same life experiences I have.