Jimmy Carr Causes Widespread Outrage With Holocaust Joke In Netflix Special

Jimmy Carr’s Netflix Special debuted back on Christmas Day, 2021. However, he faced a massive backlash when a clip from the said show was widely shared on social media on Friday. In Netflix stand-up comedy special “His Dark Material,” Carr referenced people that Nazi Germany persecuted.

Carr made a joke about traveler communities of Europe, the Gypsy and Roma people that were slaughtered mercilessly by the Nazi Regime. “When people talk about the Holocaust, they talk about the tragedy of 6 million Jewish lives being lost to the Nazi war machine. But they never mention the thousands of Gypsies that the Nazis killed,” Carr said. “No one ever wants to talk about that because no one ever wants to talk about the positives.”

The Irish-British comedian went on to defend the joke later in the special, calling it “educational” because “a lot of people don’t know … that the Nazis also killed in their thousands, gypsies, homosexuals, disabled people and Jehovah’s Witnesses.”

Carr’s comments have garnered a widespread anger from all kinds of representatives of minorities. Olivia Marks-Woldman, CEO of the Holocaust Memorial Trust made a following statement:

We are absolutely appalled at Jimmy Carr’s comment about persecution suffered by Roma and Sinti people under Nazi oppression, and horrified that gales of laughter followed his remarks,” Marks-Woldman said. “Hundreds of thousands of Roma and Sinti people suffered prejudice, slave labour, sterilization and mass murder simply because of their identity. These are not experiences for mockery.”

A Labor MP has written to Netflix urging the removal of Carr’s special from the platform. Netflix and Carr are yet to comment on the on-going controversy.