Czech Jewish leaders are shocked about reports that the former wartime transit camp of Terezin is being used to shoot scenes for a pornographic film.
The Czech tabloid Super reported Saturday that the film, starring top Czech porn star Robert Rosenberg, is set at the end of World War II and will tell the story of how women at the camp were raped by Nazis.
The paper, which printed the story with a collage of a semi-naked woman posing in front of a picture of Terezin, said the film’s working title is “How It Was.”
Rosenberg, 27, was quoted in Super as saying that the main plot will revolve around Terezin but there will be no erotic scenes shot inside the former camp, which was also known as Theresienstadt.
“Terezin will not have anything to do with erotica, we don’t want to treat the victims of the war with disrespect,” he told the newspaper.
But Jan Munk, director of the Terezin Memorial, said he was outraged by the idea that Terezin could be used as a backdrop for a porn film.
“It’s a scandal,” he said. “I understand the film is hard-core pornography, and we are extremely unhappy about this.”
Munk said there may be problem in taking the filmmakers to court, however.
“We will be looking into the legal position, but it may be very difficult to make a case if they are just using pictures of Terezin and mixing them into the film,” he said.
Tomas Jelinek, chairman of Prague’s Jewish community, also joined in the condemnation.
“This is unbelievable, given the significance that Terezin has for the Jewish people. It gives” the former camp a “completely different connotation to what it should have,” he said.
Newsstands in the town of Terezin were said to be busy as people lined up to read the story. The overwhelming reaction was one of disgust.
“When I read that they were making a porn film using Terezin, I felt sick in the pit of my stomach,” Prague schoolteacher Jana Stolova told JTA.
Rosenberg was unavailable for comment Sunday, but the mayor of Terezin, Ruzena Cechova, has said she plans to contact the police to ascertain whether any laws have been broken.
This is the second scandal surrounding Terezin to hit the headlines in the past year.
In February 2001, a German entrepreneur angered Jewish circles by offering families cheap trips to a shooting range next to Terezin. Czech-born hotel owner Rudolf Potucek used the Internet to advertise trips from his hotel in the town of Litomerice to a range on the outskirts of the former ghetto.
The Web site was removed after widespread protests.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
