Prague, Aug 18 (CTK) – The Israeli media have been outraged by a Czech tour bus plastered with an advertisement inviting to a tourist trip to the Auschwitz Nazi extermination camp, which was made as a prop for a film, but the bus operator did not remove it after the shooting, daily Pravo writes yesterday.
The bus even bears the images of some Holocaust victims and the slogan: “Come to Auschwitz – A journey through emotions,” the paper adds.
The Jews’ indignation has also turned to the documentary film director, Vit Klusak, who ordered the “decoration.”
The bus owner refused to remove the coating, arguing that it would be too costly and damage the paint finish, The Jerusalem Post reported on Wednesday.
“I was absolutely appalled when I spotted the bus offering the tours to Auschwitz. Only a person with no moral decency could make a business out of the Auschwitz catastrophe,” the Israeli daily quotes Erika Bezdickova, whose entire family was killed in the Nazi death camp, as saying.
The Time of Israel server says the tour bus’s design is at least tasteless. It also shows the notorious inscription from concentration camps “Arbeit macht frei” and the Star of David symbol of Judaism.
The bus was made for Klusak’s film entitled “The World According to Dalibor,” which the director describes as a “documentary horror.”
“It is a portrait of a 40-year-old Czech neo-Nazi… The film culminates with a scene, in which the Nazi decides to visit Auschwitz with his family,” Klusak told Pravo.
The Jerusalem Post explains that the documentary thereby mocks the tourist industry, in which Auschwitz is presented as an attractive tourist destination.
However, the explanation did not mitigate the outrage of readers who wrote protest letters to Israeli papers, Pravo writes.
The bus owner is the Auto Xaver firm of Svatopluk Strava from Blucina, south Moravia, who also organises trips to Auschwitz.
Prague Jewish Museum director Leo Pavlat called on him to remove the images from the bus as soon as possible. However, Strava refused to do so, saying it would be too expensive, The Jerusalem Post writes.
“I have ended up in this situation at the client’s request,” he told Pravo, adding that with his firm’s lawyer he is preparing a statement for the media.
Klusak told Pravo that he expected the owner to clean the bus.
“Not in my wildest dreams, would it cross my mind that the bus owner would preserve the ‘decoration’ and drive such a bus. We naturally planned to remove it completely, but he asked us to keep it as it was for fear that the removal would damage the paint,” Klusak said.
“We have thereby got a piece of evidence proving that the people working in this business identify themselves with such a marketing,” he pointed out.
But he added that he had heard the owner would do something with the bus eventually.
This scandal has at least opened a debate and the problem is being talked about, Klusak told Pravo.
