Auschwitz was a theme park, sings blogger in dock over hate speech
A BLOGGER sang along in court to a video of her own song which described Auschwitz as a ‘theme park’ and the Holocaust as a ‘Holohoax’.
Alison Chabloz’s performance of the song, entitled (((Survivors))), was applauded by her supporters in the public gallery as she appeared on indecency charges yesterday.
In the song, she mocks prominent Jewish figures – including Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel, as well as Anne and Otto Frank – to the tune of a traditional Jewish song.
The court heard that the brackets in the title denoted the so- called ‘ echo’ used by antisemites to identify Jewish people on social media.
Chabloz appeared to sing the song at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, with her supporters in the gallery laughing, singing along and then applauding. District Judge John Zani said anyone who repeated such behaviour would be ordered to leave the court.
Chabloz, 53, of Glossop, Derbyshire, faces five charges related to three songs posted online, which the prosecution says are ‘grossly offensive’.
Prosecutor Karen Robinson said: ‘ The songs are designed to provoke maximum upset and discomfort. By the standards of an open and multi-racial society, they are grossly offen- (((Survivors))) devotes a verse to Otto Frank and his daughter Anne, whose diary is a moving account of her Jewish family’s ordeal during the Second World War.
The lyrics claim that the young girl, who died just weeks before the liberation of the BergenBelsen concentration camp, wrote the introduction, but ‘the rest was penned by someone else then published by me [Otto]’.
The song also brands Holocaust survivor Mr Wiesel a liar. Of a book he wrote recounting his experience, Chabloz is heard to sing: ‘It’s full of nonsense tales of course, what did you expect? But it made me very wealthy, as a liar I’m the best.’ The blogger denies two counts of sending by a public communications network an offensive, indecent or menacing message or material in relation to two of the three songs. She also denies two counts of causing offensive material to be sent by a public communications network.
She also denies a fifth charge in relation to a song entitled I Like The Story As It Is, which describes the Holocaust as a ‘damn fine tale’.
The defendant, who told police she was a ‘Holocaust revisionist’, said she wanted to ‘entersive.’ tain my audience, my viewers’ and to put across ‘my political artistic creative point’, the court heard.
Giving evidence, Gideon Falter, chairman of the Campaign Against Antisemitism charity, told the court: ‘The allegation that Anne Frank’s diary is a fraud puts Ms Chabloz very firmly in the company of neoNazis and Holocaust deniers.’
Of his reaction to the lyrics of (((Survivors))), Mr Falter said it was clear ‘that the way the song is performed is intended to be extremely hurtful and extremely offensive’.
The trial continues.
‘Grossly offensive’