What Is Happening to Europe's Carnivals?

Germany  "Obama-the Savior"


Germany   Merkel -"The Black Widow"



Viareggio, Italy 2019


Carnival season in Europe has traditionally focused largely on political satire. The floats created are imaginative and often (depending on your point of view) hilariously funny. The above floats are an example. Offensive? Again, depending on your point of view. I don't see any racist message in the Obama float. The above float of Trump last year in Italy was meant to be complimentary of our controversial president.

But sometimes, the offense is obvious and can be downright ugly. During the Nazi years in Germany, Carnival continued. Obviously, there were no satiric representations of Hitler, but the Jews were fair game as seen below (Hat tip Cervantes).




Cologne, Germany 1934- "The last are leaving"



Cologne, Germany 1936

https://abluteau.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/the-nazis-bid-to-control-carnival/


One would think that such representations of Jews were just an aberration that happened in Germany during the Third Reich never to be seen again.

But now we are seeing this:



Aalst, Belgium 2019


Aalst, 2020

Yes, the little Belgian town of Aalst has made headlines the past two years with these insulting images of Jews. And they are not apologizing. In fact, this year's floats include more anti-Semitic images in spite of the protests.

And from a town near Madrid in Spain, we see this. Men in Nazi uniforms with a backdrop of concentration camp ovens. Very funny.



Near Madrid 2020

The comparisons with the Nazi-era floats are obvious, and in a time when Jews throughout Europe are under attack and living in fear, to portray them with these images is worse than offensive. It is downright dangerous. We know what those floats in Germany in the 1930s led to. Those images were straight out of Julius Streicher's Der Stuermer. The modern day images we are seeing in Belgium and Spain are no different. I defy anyone to examine these photos from the 1930s and 2019/2020 and tell me how they are different. Explain to me how they are harmless.