On Saturday night in Russia, a Holocaust-themed celebrity ice-skating performance broadcast on Russian television show Ice Age took audiences by surprise.
The skaters, Tatiana Navka who is married to Vladimir Putin's spokesman, and Andrei Burkovsky, performed the routine dressed as concentration camp inmates in striped uniforms with the yellow Star of David badge sewn on.
They danced to a song featured in the Italian film 'Life is Beautiful'.
Ilya Averbukh, who is Jewish and the choreographer behind the controversial routine, defended the theme.
"This is some kind of global madness, I have no other words to say," Mr Averbukh APTN. "In any other scenario this dance would have remained unnoticed like many, many others."
Ms Navka's husband Dimitry Peskov, who is spokesman for president Vladimir Putin, told Russia's Tass news agency he's not able to comment on the incident, but did say he's proud of his wife.
"I do not think this is the issue, which can be somehow associated with the Kremlin, and due to my work responsibilities I am restricted in the possibility of making comments on it," Mr Peskov said.
YouTube user Viki Reznik, commented on a video of the performance: “This is terrible, people don’t understand what they are doing. This is blasphemy.”
However other uses thought it was performed tastefully.
Amnon Willinger said in the YouTube comments section that he was from Israel, but “not offended”
“Together with the music and the acting, similar to the film ‘Life is beautiful’, I actually see a depiction of the difficulties Jewish parents had to go through to keep their children happy.”
Another person commenting, Tiago Blumenfeld, described the “performance and the song as “so thrilling, so respectful, so sweetly done".
“By the way, if Hollywood can show it through its movies, what's the problem in this performance??? Just because it was not performed in America???”
Six million Jewish people are estimated to have been killed during the Holocaust.
-With AAP
