Spanish carnival featuring lingerie-clad female Nazis sparks fury among Jewish groups

A Spanish carnival parade ‘commemorating’ the Holocaust with lingerie-clad Nazi officers and dancing concentration camp victims has been condemned as ‘vile and disgusting’ by Jewish groups.

The bizarre parade in Campo de Criptana featured dancing Nazis, scantily-clad women dressed as SS officers with dominatrix whips and concentration camp prisoners in sequined tights and Israeli flags.

There was also a float with a giant Hebrew menorah lamp between two crematorium chimneys.

The El Chaparral Cultural Association which staged Monday’s event insisted the parade was intended to be a ‘commemoration’ of those who perished in the Holocaust.

But the Israeli embassy in Madrid tweeted: ‘We condemn the vile and disgusting representation banalizing the Holocaust at the Carnival of Campo de Criptana, making fun of the six million Jews killed by the Nazis. European countries must actively combat antisemitism.’

The Auschwitz memorial museum tweeted: ‘Hard to describe: memory upside-down, far beyond vulgar kitsch, without any relevance, without reflection & respect.’

According to a sign on one of the floats, the organisers, the parade was a commemoration of the ‘six million Jewish men, women and children who perished in the Holocaust and all those who suffered persecution and extermination because of their race, sexual orientation, religion, ethnic origin or political ideas’. 

The town council of Campo de Criptana, in the central Spanish region of Castilla-La Mancha, said permission had been granted on the understanding that it would honour the dead of the Holocaust.  

The council said in a statement: ‘We share the criticisms that have been expressed.

‘If the aim was to commemorate the victims, it’s obvious the attempt fell short.’

According to the local Cadena Ser radio station, the town’s mayor said: ‘I agree that it doesn’t feel like a very carnival-type theme. I don’t think it will happen again.’

Earlier this month, the pro-independence Catalan MEP Clara Ponsatí was accused of trivialising the Holocaust by comparing Spain’s expulsion of the Jews in 1492 with its treatment of the ‘Catalan minority’ and suggested the mass banishment had inspired Hitler.

Last weekend carnival organisers in the Belgian town of Aalst were condemned after people dressed up in antisemitic costumes depicting Jews with huge noses and as ants.