The ‘bawaal’ over Varun Dhawan-Jahnvi Kapoor’s film and its link to the Holocaust

Varun Dhawan and Jahnvi Kapoor’s new release is creating ‘bawaal’ in all the wrong ways. The Nitesh Tiwari movie, titled Bawaal, streaming on OTT platform Amazon Prime has earned the ire of a Jewish human rights organisation. The Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) has written a letter to the OTT platform, asking them to drop the film, which according to them, trivialises the ‘suffering and systematic murder of millions of victims of the Nazi Holocaust’. Here’s a better understanding of why the Jewish organisation is upset with the movie , calling it a “banal trivialisation of the suffering and systematic murder of millions of victims of the Nazi Holocaust”. Why the outrage over Bawaal? For those who haven’t watched the movie yet, Bawaal revolves around the life of Ajay Dixit, a small-town high school history teacher (Varun Dhawan), and his wife Nisha, played by Janhvi. As part of the movie, they decide to go on a Second World War trail across Europe by visiting Poland, the Netherlands, and Germany. Now, herein lies the problem. In one scene, they are shown visiting the concentration camps in Auschwitz, re-imagining themselves as the prisoners in a dream sequence. The scene shows Varun and Jahnvi as both wearing striped pajamas and awaiting their death at a gas camp. The act is trying to draw an analogy between their personal difficulties and the atrocities committed during the Holocaust. In another scene, Jahnvi playing Nisha says, “We’re all a little like Hitler, aren’t we?” In another scene, the character also says, “Every relationship goes through Auschwitz” while referring to the struggles of all relationships. These portrayals have offended the sentiments of many, including Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the SWC associate dean and director of Global Social Action. He told The Jerusalem Post, “By having the protagonist in this movie declare that ‘every relationship goes through their Auschwitz,’ Nitesh Tiwari trivialises and demeans the memory of six million murdered Jews and millions of others who suffered at the hands of Hitler’s genocidal regime.” [caption id=“attachment_12925212” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] A scene, where the protagonists Ajay and Nisha are shown visiting the concentration camps in Auschwitz and re imagining themselves as the prisoners in a dream sequence, has, irked the Jewish community. Image Courtesy: Instagram[/caption] He also added, “Auschwitz is not a metaphor. It is the quintessential example of Man’s capacity for Evil.” He has also written to the OTT platform streaming the movie, asking for it to be taken down. “If the filmmaker’s goal was to gain PR for their movie by reportedly filming a fantasy sequence at the Nazi death camp, he has succeeded. Amazon Prime should stop monetising Bawaal by immediately removing this banal trivialisation of the suffering and systematic murder of millions of victims of the Nazi Holocaust.” But what is this Simon Wiesenthal Center? As per its own website, it is a global Jewish human rights organisation that confronts anti-Semitism, hate, stands with Israel, defends the safety of Jews worldwide, and teaches the lessons of the Holocaust for future generations. It was established in 1977 by Rabbi Marvin Hier and was named after famous Nazi hunter, Simon Wiesenthal. Incidentally, it’s not just the SWC that has taken umbrage to the dialogue. Several netizens have called out the maker and the actors of the movie for being insensitive. As one wrote on newly-rebranded X, “An Auschwitz survivor’s story about his separation from his wife at the concentration camp makes Varun Dhawan realise what separation from your partner actually means. Bawaal is tone-deaf on so many levels (sic).” How have the maker and actors reacted? Nitesh Tiwari , the director of the movie, has defended his work and said in an interview to Pinkvilla that he was “disappointed with the way some people” had interpreted the Auschwitz sequences in the film. “I am a bit disappointed with the way some people have comprehended it. That was never the intention. It would never be my intention to be insensitive in any which way,” he is quoted as saying. Jahnvi, too, defended the film, telling Pinkvilla that when she spoke about it to an Ivy League university professor, whose ancestors didn’t survive the Holocaust, he wasn’t offended, but was moved by it. “He understood everything that we set out to do with the film, and never once in the conversation did he ever allude to being offended by anything.” [caption id=“attachment_12925192” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Bollywood actors Varun Dhawan and Janhvi Kapoor have both defended their film, Bawaal, with Jahnvi saying that when she showed it to a person whose ancestors died in the Holocaust, he did not find it offending. PTI[/caption] Varun Dhawan also said in an interview, “Some people got triggered or sensitive about this. But I don’t understand where does that sensitivity or trigger go when they watch, suppose an English film, I’m saying for example. They’re allowed to do everything there, they’re allowed to take leaps and they’re allowed to show things in a certain way, but you’ll find that correct. I know people have got very triggered after watching a small scene in a brilliant film, recently released. It’s a scene that’s important to our culture and our country. But that’s okay for you. You don’t feel they should be more sensitive to you? So where does your criticism go then?” What is the terrible history of Auschwitz? Auschwitz-Birkenau , a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland, became the centre of the Nazi Holocaust. While precise numbers are still debated, some believe that at least 960,000 Jews died at this camp. Other victims included approximately 74,000 Poles, 21,000 Roma, 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war and at least 10,000 from other nationalities. More people died at Auschwitz than at any other Nazi concentration camp and probably than at any death camp in history. [caption id=“attachment_12925272” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] The railway tracks where hundred thousands of people arrived to be directed to the gas chambers inside the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz Birkenau, or Auschwitz II. AP[/caption] The camp was initially built because local prisons could not cope with the sheer number of Poles arrested. It was later expanded to include death chambers as crematoriums as Jews from all over Europe were sent to be murdered. Many horrors unfolded at Auschwitz of which death was only one of them. Disturbing medical experiments, including castration, sterilisation, were carried out in the camp. Moreover, the infamous “Angel of Death”, SS captain Dr Josef Mengele, was one of the physicians practising here. His particular interest was experimenting on twins. Horrific experiments were also performed on women at Auschwitz, particularly focusing on sterilisation. Reports state that Professor Dr Carl Clauberg, a German gynaecologist, developed a method of non-surgical mass sterilisation at the camp that consisted of introducing into the female reproductive organs a specially prepared chemical irritant that produced severe inflammation. In weeks, the fallopian tubes were blocked. [caption id=“attachment_12925302” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] The infamous “Arbeit macht frei” (“Work will set you free”) gate sign from the Nazi-era Auschwitz death camp in Poland. File image/AFP[/caption] Years after the camp was liberated, the survivors have recalled the horrors they witnessed there. Leon Schwarzbaum, an Auschwitz survivor from Berlin, told the Associated Press in 2016, “We saw the fire from the chimneys. “So much fire came out of the chimneys, no smoke, just fire. And that was burning people.” Another survivor of the camp Henri Kichka described it to the BBC as “a crack in the surface of the Earth through which hell could be seen. And a crack in the surface of our common humanity through which could be seen our capacity for enduring suffering – and inflicting it”. And in 2020 when he was asked how he came out of it alive, he said: “You did not live through Auschwitz. The place itself is death.” With inputs from agencies