A bunch of Israeli game devs – under the banner of Team Raycast – have been promoting a Wolfenstein 3D mod dubbed Sonderkommando Revolt. Basically, it’s set in perhaps the most infamous Nazi deathcamp, Auschwitz, and very (very, very) loosely based on an actual event, when the predominantly Jewish Sonderkommando unit – prisoners drafted into assisting with murders of inmates – briefly took up arms against the captors in October 1944.
In the real life version of the story, three SS soldiers were killed, and 451 Sonderkommandos died. It’s a bit different in the game, obviously.
Anyway, perhaps needless to say, but the Jewish Anti-Defamation League – originally founded to “stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all” – has chucked its dreidels over the game.
“Perhaps well intentioned in its creation, its execution and imagery are horrific and inappropriate,” an unnamed Anti-Defamation League spokesperson told Kotaku. “The Holocaust should be off-limits for video games. We hope the developers will reconsider and abandon the game. This rudimentary video game is an offensive portrayal of the Holocaust. With its unnecessarily gruesome and gratuitous graphics, it is a crude effort to depict Jewish resistance during this painful period which should never be trivialized.”
Apparently justice, fair treatment to all, and free speech only matter when they’re endorsed by the Anti-Defamation League.
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