Israeli artist Shahak Shapira has seen enough of these disrespectful selfies taken in the absolute worst places for them. So he launched an art project called “Yolocaust” in hopes to shame the selfie-takers from the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin.
“Over the last years, I noticed an interesting phenomenon at the Holocaust memorial in Berlin: people were using it as a scenery for selfies. So I took those selfies and combined them with footage from Nazi extermination camps,” Shapira wrote.
He gathered the selfies from the social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Tinder, and Grindr, and then combined them with the hard-to-watch real footage from concentration camps. The artist was shocked by just how distanced from the actual meaning of the monument its visitors were, which is illustrated with the comments, hashtags and “likes” that were posted with the selfies.
“About 10,000 people visit the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe every day. Many of them take goofy pictures, jump, skate or bike on the 2,711 concrete slabs of the 19,000 m² large structure,” Shapira wrote.
“The exact meaning and role of the Holocaust Memorial are controversial. To many, the grey stelae symbolize gravestones for the 6 Million Jews that were murdered and buried in mass graves, or the grey ash to which they were burned to in the death camps.”
For those, who found themselves in these photos Shapira offers to take them down upon request through e-mail undouche.me@yolocaust.de.
#1
#2
#3
#4
#5
The guy who appears is this picture reached out to the artist and wrote:
"I am the guy that inspired you to make Yolocaust, so I've read at least. I am the "jumping on de..." I cant even write it, kind of sick of looking at it. I didn't mean to offend anyone. Now I just keep seeing my words in the headlines. "
I have seen what kind of impact those words have and it's crazy and it's not what I wanted (…)
The photo was meant for my friends as a joke. I am known to make out of line jokes, stupid jokes, sarcastic jokes. And they get it. If you knew me you would too. But when it gets shared, and comes to strangers who have no idea who I am, they just see someone disrespecting something important to someone else or them.
That was not my intention. And I am sorry. I truly am.
With that in mind, I would like to be undouched.
P.S. Oh, and if you could explain to BBC, Haaretz and aaaaallll the other blogs, news stations etc. etc. that I fucked up, that'd be great. 😅
#6
#7
#8
#9
#10
#11
