HMV describing Jewish refugee children as Central European Children

[Trulywonderful]

Would I be unreasonable to as any of you on twitter or willing to write an email complaint to HMV to do me a favour

HMV have described the Jewish refugee children in the new One Life film as Central European Children. This is erasing there Jewishness from the description. I know some may feel objection to this is petty but at the moment the Jewish community are seeing a far bit of this behaviour. Erasing us from things to make people feel more comfortable etc

Anyway if people want to help and tweet about this or email HMV I would be very grateful

It why should Jews ‘just be happy it’s made’?

I know you didn’t use the word Jewishness, that was aimed at other people.

If the word ‘people’ was used to describe what is predominantly a woman’s issue, that IS erasure.

What prompted the setting up of the Kindertransport immigration rules by the British government? Kristallnacht.

What was Kristallnacht? A violent and widespread attack on Jews.

So while some of the children weren’t Jewish, the fact that the vast majority were is for a reason. Because the immigration route that Winton piggy-backed on was specifically set up in response to violence against Jews.

The fact that they are Jewish is pretty fundamental to the whole thing.

No, predominantly is not.
If people is used to describe solely a women's issue that's different.
If women is used inaccurately to describe something that also affects significant numbers of men that's misleading.

The vast majority of the children rescued by Winton were Jewish (some websites say they all were, so I’m not sure where the figures are coming from on how many were non-Jewish). The children’s Jewishness is essential to their story because it is the reason they had to get on those trains. They were targeted by the Nazis purely because they were Jews. Murderous antisemitism was central to Nazi ideology, and I find it really worrying how many people are now willing to obfuscate or outright deny that fact. We know other groups were targeted and they should obviously be commemorated, but the central aim of the Holocaust was to exterminate the Jews of Europe through industrial means.

They haven't erased the word Jewish because of anti-jewish feeling (although if they had it would be in the aim of protecting Jewish communities)

I'm guessing my post slipped past you, but am still keen to hear what you meant here re erasure being used in order to protect Jewish communities? @Mumof2teens79

To be clear, I am not, and I don't believe anyone here is arguing that antisemitism was not at the root of the holocaust or that children were not targeted because they were Jewish.
I am saying that the omission of the word in a short promo for a popular movie retelling of part of the story is not "erasing" that fact.

Take the woman example. Some things ONLY affect women, other things predominantly affect women. If you set up a charity to help victims of domestic violence in Bristol and you help 60 people, but 1 of them was a man. It would be incorrect and slightly offensive to claim you had helped 60 women.
But you can still focus your efforts on women, still acknowledge that women are the biggest group of victims and men the most common perpetrator.

This

Switching ‘mostly Jewish’ for ‘Central European’ is balls because it is confusing (what is Central Europe?) and doesn’t give any real hint as to why these children are being removed from their parents whereas ‘mostly Jewish’ instantly provides you with some insight into what the future threat was, and why it was important to take these children away from Central Europe.

It’s a bloody important plot point, and deliberately substituting it out makes it a worse advert for the film.

The wording isn't good because it gives the impression that the children being rescued were random central European children, which isn't the case.

I don't want to overstep or speak to a heritage that isn't mine so sorry if that's how this comes across, but I think they should identify the heritage of those affected, which means identifying the children were Jewish, Roma, and children who were targeted politically by the Nazi regime. Something like "A film about a hero who saved hundreds of children from central Europe who were targeted by the Nazis for being Jewish, Roma..."

Because people who actually are racist and antisemitic and generally bigots, tend to be really quite stupid, and so drawing attention to minority groups even in the most simple of ways often only leads to more incidents. Whether that's vandalism on posters and advertisements or targeting verbal or physical harassment at people going to see the film, or many other things I can't think.

I personally think the decision was based purely on factual accuracy but if I allow myself to think their could have been a conversation about do we want to use the word Jewish in the current climate then I think its more likely (given the people who want the film made are clearly not antisemitic) that that decision was made to avoid accidentally inciting attacks against Jewish people.

I think this covers precisely why the predominant identity of the children is relevant.

Anyway, suppose we should be happy the film was made or something .

I just want to say thank you to the non Jewish posters that have understood the issue here. You posting to explain it to others or debate with those that can't see an issue is much appreciated

You definitely do not have to be Jewish to have an opinion on these things or help us to explain these issues to other people

Many thanks

The question of accuracy I'll leave because others have successfully argued why it should have included Jewish, in some form.

However, I still fail to see why a film about Jewish children being rescued from Nazi persecution would encourage antisemitism. It sounds like a ridiculously far reach to suit your 'don't include Jews' narrative. Do you really think a production company like Warner care more about the Jewish community than they do their own coffers?

Everyone should be happy a good(hopefully) movies are made about atrocities like that. That's how many get their knowledge nowadays. If it makes 1000 people google and read about it and learn, it's a good thing.

Just to add, not happy as cheerong, just happy it's talked about so the genocides, mass murders and exterminations don't get forgotten and people learn about them and history.
Those who don't know history are bound to repeat it

It feels like they are trying to not use the word Jewish due to the war in the middle East between hamas and Israel after the 7th October terrorist attack on people in Israel by Hamas.

History shows it was predominantly Jewish children not random central European children eg German, Swiss, Spanish etc....

It feels wrong and is wrong

The it wasn't used to protect Jewish people argument is horrific for various historical reasons and very wrong

They did not use the word Jewish in the description because they thought in the current climate of rising Jew hate they would lose money. That people wouldn't want to watch the film if they mentioned before people saw it that it was about mostly Jewish children as well as other groups. Let's face it there are people out there that have no idea what the kindertransport is.

The decision is about money. This means that Warner Bros and others are erasing the word Jewish because of money and other people's antisemitism

It's the central Europe. In the middle.
I did realise many on twitter switched to Eastern Europe when CS was mentioned but geography is not that hard really. 🤷

I agree with the "mostly" part

Given the timing it does seem to be about money.

There's a lot of people out there who are critical of the Israeli government position and are smart enough, and non-bigoted enough, to know that Israeli government decisions in war does not equal Jewish people worldwide. Therefore they'd have no need, for example, to boycott local businesses owned by Jewish people because obviously a local Jewish family business has nothing to do with the state of Israel.

Sadly there's also a lot of uninformed people who might, out of their own ignorance, blind spots, and openly held antisemitism, decide not to watch something because they believe that anything to do with Jewish people is somehow endorsing the state of Israel and Israeli foreign policy.

I've rewritten this post too many times but hopefully people will take it charitably.

I think this was written by a non Jewish person who thought that Central European neatly covered all the kids that were rescued rather than listing out the different groups. I can see why Jewish people would see that as missing the point.

Equally though the people saying that it should say 'mostly Jewish' don't seem to be concerned about the other groups that they would be erasing by saying that.

Yes, not all the children Sir Nicholas rescued were not Jewish.
And of course we must never forget that the Nazis persecuted many other people including Romani people, disabled people, gay people etc.
However playing down the fact that the children were mostly Jewish to the extent it's not even mentioned is like trailing a film about the Civil Rights movement in 1960s America without showing that most of the major players were Black. It's that basic and that misleading.
Nicholas Winton, while raised a Christian, was ethnically Jewish (because Judaism, like Sikhism, is an ethnoreligon).
He was asked to assist people (in what was then Czechoslovakia) who were motivated by the plight of Jews in the late 1930s. While they didn't just help Jewish children, what brought Sir Nicholas and others together to arrange the transport was the plight of Jews and most of the children and families they assisted were Jewish.
And what prompted the whole movement to get Jewish children to Britain bia organised transport was Kristalnacht - a program against Jews. The Dutch authorities officially closed the borders to Jewish refugees after that point and it took people like Sir Nicholas - educated, intelligent, affluent, and connected - to broker the transport.
So without Kristalnacht, there wouldn't have even been the trains taking children to Britain from Prague.
These are some of the many reasons why in this specific example (not in terms of holocaust education in general) to fail to mention Jews is wrong and I strongly suspect has been done given the terrible ongoing situation in the middle east which has led to rates of antisemitic attacks rising by more than 1000pc in London alone.

669 predominantly Jewish children. Saved from the Nazis before WW2 and brought to families in England.

There are some who would deny the holocaust so important not to deny Hilter's intentions towards Jewish people.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-lancashire-67876587

Equally though the people saying that it should say 'mostly Jewish' don't seem to be concerned about the other groups that they would be erasing by saying that.

How is it erasing them? It would only be erasing them if it said he rescued a bunch of Jewish children with no hint of any non-Jews.

As previously mentioned, the fact they were Jewish is important and worth mentioning because it explains a lot about the film in only a couple of words.

Probably because they weren’t exclusively Jewish, some were Romany.

This.