A Holocaust-themed game created by a Greek company has shocked the Jewish community and prompted their outcry. The company “Great Escape” created an escape-room game with direct reference to Steven Spielberg’s film “Schindler’s List.”
The outcry by the Jewish Community prompted the company to change the game name into “Secret Agent.” However, the game goal remains the same: to draw up a list of survivors who will be spared a grisly death by enemy forces.
“While the game, advertised prominently on the company’s website, makes no explicit reference to Jews or the Holocaust, initial descriptions featured on Greek websites lured players, challenging them to assist a German businessman, Oskar Schindler, in “saving as many innocent people from the pursuit of SS forces,” in Krakow, Poland,” German broadcaster Deutsche Well reports.
“It is year 1939 in Krakow. The German businessman arrived in town hoping to earn money from the war. During his stay, his mission changed to saving as many innocents as possible from the German Army, by hiring them to work in his factory. Your mission is to find important documents and deliver it to the right hands. Will you manage to escape from the German army and save the lives of hundreds of innocent people?” – Great Escape Secret Agent Introduction
The Holocaust-themed game is reportedly “taking Greek youth by storm,” and users describe the game as “an undeniably entertaining adventure,” the report says adding that “anti-semitism thrives in Greece.”
Officials contacted at the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece (KIS) have condemned the game, saying they were considering taking action.
“It’s not about anti-Semitism,” said Vice President Victor Eliezer. “The so-called success of these games hinges on ignorance sweeping [through] Greek society. Ask around, and chances are that most Greeks will tell you Schindler was some sort of rock star or soccer player.”
That the creators altered the game’s name without effectively changing the plot, he said, signals even greater disrespect.
“All I wish is for them to take a trip to Auschwitz to sense, even for a fraction of a second, the terror of death in a German concentration camp. Only then can there be hope that they no longer move to debase human suffering,” Eliezer told DW.
The council’s fury has gone almost unnoticed in Greece. But US activists have caught on and they are livid.
“To take an experience like the Holocaust that was dehumanizing for the victims and to turn that into a game trivializes not just the event, but it trivializes their suffering,” said Victoria Barnett, director of the Programs on Ethics, Religion, and the Holocaust at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
The contentious game sprang from the heart of Thessaloniki, Greece’s second-largest city and home to a vibrant Jewish community that was almost completely wiped out by Nazi forces in 1943. Before World War II, Thessaloniki’s Jewish community counted among the largest in the world, lending the northern Greek city the titles of Mother of Israel and Jerusalem of the Balkans.
At the height of World War II more than 44,000 Jews were deported to concentration camps in central Europe. Just a handful of survivors returned to a city that had lost 96 percent of its Jewish community.
“We cannot forget. We shall not forget. We shouldn’t forget,” said David Saltiel, the president of the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece.
The game in question is one of eight offered by the Great Escape company. It’s advertised as “one of the most exciting escape rooms.”
Company officials reached by telephone in Thessaloniki angrily refused to comment on the controversy. Company officials in Athens insisted the game bore no link to the Holocaust.
Players approached by Deutsche Welle, refused to comment. But they did not seem to be concerned about the impact the venture could have in a country with strong streak of anti-Semitism. Instead, reviews posted on the company’s website and TripAdvisor showed hundreds of people rating it as an “excellent” experience. One person billed it as “an undeniably entertaining adventure.”
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