Remember When France's Synchronized Swimming Team Tried to Do a 'Holocaust-Themed' Routine?
LatestSynchronized swimming has never been what you might call “cool” or “hip to the latest trends.” At this year’s Olympic games, for example, swimmers have performed to a mix of bad ‘80s music, classical tunes, and “Blurred Lines” by Robin Thicke. But nothing really beats the time France put together a routine set to the Schindler’s List soundtrack.
The year was 1996. The plan, according to the New York Times report at the time: “In black bathing suits, team members would goose-step in German military style to the side of the pool.” Sehr cool!
Then, “they would re-enact the arrival of Jewish women in the death camps, the selection by Nazi doctors and their final march to the gas chambers.” It would be performed to music from Schindler’s List, which had premiered a few years earlier, along with “chants sung in Jewish ghettoes before the Holocaust.” Can you imagine what this might have looked like? “C’mon, ladies, let’s nail this swastika!”
The public reaction was, of course, not great: