The Olympian wife of Russian president Vladimir Putin‘s spokesman Dmitry Peskov sparked outrage after she danced in a Holocaust-themed ice skating performance on a popular Russian TV show.
Tatiana Navka, who won gold at the 2006 Turin Olympics, appeared with her dance partner, Andrei Burkovsky, on the Saturday, November 26, episode of Ice Age, where they dressed in striped uniforms emblazoned with yellow Stars of David and wore dark makeup to look bruised.
The duo’s routine was based on Life Is Beautiful, the 1997 Oscar-winning Italian film about a Jewish father who uses his creative imagination to shield his young son from horrors of the Nazi concentration camp where they’re interned.
Navka, 41, later shared a collage of photos from the performance on Instagram, writing in Russian: “Our children need to know and remember that terrible time, which I hope, God willing, they will never know!”
The performance quickly made the rounds online, sparking backlash from many social media users, who dubbed the routine “Holocaust on Ice.”
“HAVE YOU LOST ALL SENSE OF DECENCY? HAVE YOU NO SHAME?” Deborah E. Lipstadt, a Holocaust Studies professor at Emory University, tweeted. “The Holocaust on ice, complete with a sound track of barking dogs.”
Peskov, meanwhile, told the Washington Post on Monday, November 28, that his wife’s dance was not “a question that concerns the Kremlin,” but said he was “proud” of Navka.
The performance was choreographed by 2002 Olympic silver medalist Ilia Averbukh, who is Jewish.
