Photo: easyJet Traveller

EasyJet recalls magazine with Holocaust memorial fashion shoot

Published: 24 Nov 09 10:14 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/society/20091124-23481.html

British discount airline easyJet has recalled some 280,000 copies of its in-flight magazine after complaints about a fashion shoot staged at Berlin’s Holocaust memorial, daily Financial Times Deutschland reported on Tuesday.

The November edition of “easyJet Traveller,” which features a fashion section with fashion models in provocative poses amid the pillars of the sombre monument to the six million Jews killed by the Nazis, in addition to shots taken at the city's Jewish Museum, has sparked outrage in the British and Israeli press.

According to the paper, easyJet issued a statement apologising to anyone who may have been offended by the magazine spread, explaining that it had been produced by an external advertising agency.

Meanwhile a spokesperson for the Foundation for the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe told the paper that the agency did not register to take the photographs at the site in central Berlin.

Foundation Director Uwe Neumärker also said that only projects “that have a contextual reference to the memorial” are allowed to use the site and commercial activities are strictly forbidden.

The paper said easyJet is now reviewing their relationship with the company that produced the photo shoot.

The Local (news@thelocal.de)

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Your comments about this article:

10:35 November 24, 2009 by Steven192
Sometimes the lack of sense shown by those who work in the media is astounding.

Didn't even one person think that this might upset people?
10:38 November 24, 2009 by MrNosey
Spring collection 1945 - When size zero was frowned upon.
10:40 November 24, 2009 by Small Town Boy
It was probably the same agency that did this advertising campaign. It really makes you wonder which rock these media types live under.
10:40 November 24, 2009 by Katrina
It was pulled on Friday, but copies were still on the Friday Munich-Edinburgh flight.

I have one, it's an absolute shocker particularly as some stills were taken at the Jewish Museum and I wondered how they had managed that without permission (or without being caught).
10:52 November 24, 2009 by fraufruit
It's Easyjet ain't it?
10:57 November 24, 2009 by UrbanAngel
Katrina - keep hold of it and see if you can get some dosh on eBay
11:11 November 24, 2009 by Deccie
I read the mag last week and i actually thought the photos were very good. Sometimes I wonder why people get upset.....
11:15 November 24, 2009 by berlinski
Isn't that why they are nicknamed sleazyjet? Honestly, how can they make such a mistake as that? The advertising industry really knows no bounds. What next? A tourism photo shoot in Auschwitz?
11:40 November 24, 2009 by Steven192
I read the mag last week and i actually thought the photos were very good. Sometimes I wonder why people get upset.....
Extremely skinny people cavorting about on a memorial to millions of people who were worked/starved to death and you can't see the problem?

Are you employed in the medja by any chance?
11:56 November 24, 2009 by berlinski
Go to youtube and search for "bill hicks marketing advertising". Very funny.
12:50 November 24, 2009 by commentor
well what happened the right to freedom of speech?
12:58 November 24, 2009 by berlinski
commentor

well what happened the right to freedom of speech?

OK, I'll take a leek on your grave in the name of "freedom of speech".
13:21 November 24, 2009 by JeffZ
...some stills were taken at the Jewish Museum and I wondered how they had managed that without permission (or without being caught).
According to today's Berliner Morgenpost, they claim the Jewish Museum granted them permission for the shoot there.
Das jüdische Museum hätte für Fotoaufnahmen eine Genehmigung erteilt.
13:26 November 24, 2009 by Steven192
According to today's Berliner Morgenpost, they claim the Jewish Museum granted them permission for the shoot there.
You can imagine what the application said though. "We would like to take some tasteful and dignified photographs of the memorial for inclusion in an international magazine with Xmillion readers, there will be no nudity".
13:37 November 24, 2009 by JeffZ
No, by "there", I meant at the Jewish Museum. They admitted they didn't have permission for the Holocaust Memorial and apologized for that (nor could the Jewish Museum, which has nothing to do with the Memorial, grant them permission to shoot at the Memorial).
13:43 November 24, 2009 by Katrina
Cheers for the info, as the Jewish Museum is covered with so many surveillance cameras, I was wondering how they could have shot without permission.

It also has to be said that the photos are actually very striking until you realise what the background is.

My copy is at my mum's - she likes having the mags.
14:22 November 24, 2009 by OMFG
It's so unfreakin'believable to see the ignorance of some people - and I am now NOT referring to the media (those are bad enough), I am referring to some of the posts here...

Deccie: "I read the mag last week and i actually thought the photos were very good. Sometimes I wonder why people get upset....."

Commentor: "well what happened the right to freedom of speech?"

No wonder that a 13-year-old kills a 9-year-old just to see how it feels...

No wonder that young people (or should I say animals) beat and kick elder human beings to death...

Any more of these extremely superficial comments here? They are not even superficial anymore, these comments are way below superficial.
16:44 November 24, 2009 by ovalerio
.. In other NEWS .. Israel has revoked the 'permit' to built a football stadium financed with German funds in Palestina ..

http://australiansforpalestine.com/hass-what-does-israel-have-against-a-palestinian-stadium
17:00 November 24, 2009 by Barkingmad
What doesn`t spark outrage in the Israeli press these days??and on another thread people are debating if Germany is fascist. I`m sure the Zentral Judenrat in Germany will also have a field day.Never forget never forget,let`s keep those guiltt trips coming. Surely the memorial is there for all people to cherish.Does anyone complain when a movie is shot in a graveyard and say it`s in bad taste. This over sensitivity has to end. Everyone knows models are skinny but now we have to have a tenuous link to victims of the holocaust. Do you seriously think easyjet would want negative publicity and deliberately want to alienate people??? and before anyone asks I do not work in the media,have no affiliations to easyjet and am not anti-jewish.I`m just trying to apply some common sense.
17:06 November 24, 2009 by Quintero
¦quot;You were given an opportunity to appear before the inspection subcommittee to state your case. The subcommittee has concluded that the aforementioned work was carried out without proper permission … You are hereby obligated, in accordance with section …. of the 1966 City, Village and Buildings Planning Law, to cease activity upon and use of said land, and to raze the building … and to restore the location to its previous state within 7 days … If you do not act as required, all legal means will be taken against you, including demolition of the structure and any means required to restore the situation to its prior state, at your expense.¦quot;

Wonder if the referred advertising firm would like to do some *SHOOTINGS* in a DEVASTATED FOOTBALL STADIUM.
18:16 November 24, 2009 by berlinski
Barkingmad, neither do I work in the media or have affiliations to easyjet and I am not Jewish either. But common sense says to me not to use such a holocaust memorial for a fashion shoot. Most people in a graveyard died of natural causes and were not mass murdered on such a grand scale as happened by the Nazi's. Very bad decision to use the memorial by the advertising agency. But when are advertising agencies ever known to uphold good taste and morals anyway.
20:13 November 24, 2009 by MichaelZWilliamson
There certainly is free speech. Of course, free speech has consequences

(That's why it's "free speech" and not "consequence-free speech). Choosing a venue that upsets a lot of people is generally not a good idea for a marketing campaign. HINT: Pretty much anything to do with the Nazis or the Holocaust should not be used for marketing. It tends to upset people. (I know, I know, who would ever have guessed?)

I'm pretty sure it would be the wrong venue for a pr0n movie, too. Even if it was a patriotic and tasteful film. (You know, something Uwe Boll would produce.)

/sarcasm
20:16 November 24, 2009 by Ceven
It's absolutely disgusting that anyone would try to excuse the shoot with a "freedom of speech" argument. How insensitive can one be?

Also to say tha the photos were nice and that it's not a big deal? Really now, are you just trying to get a rise out of people?

People who are making such comments here (or anywhere else on the subject for that matter) should go take a walk through Sachsenhausen or Auschwitz. Maybe consider what the memorial is representing.

There is no excuse. It's beyond tasteless and classless to be so nonchalant about something like the Holocaust.

I'm an American athiest with no affiliations to anything. I would no sooner be so disrepectful than I would go off on a kllling spree. I pity your hollowness. Please rethink your ideas and learn a little respect for others.
08:54 November 25, 2009 by moistvelvet
Although the photographs themselves are aesthetically pleasing, the choice of location is absurd.

Was this agency was so stupid that it forgot the golden rules - Don't mess with the Jews, don't ever complain about them, don't ever challenge their policies in the ME and most certainly never do anything that in a normal expression of freedom of speech would appear as a negative comment about the Holocaust! It is not accepted and will never be so.
09:56 November 25, 2009 by MaKo
I think the golden rule being ignored here is actually this one:

Conducting a mindless fashion photo shoot at a memorial to a murdered people is in poor taste.

I can't believe that there were enough people who believed this would be a good idea to actually make it happen.

I also can't believe that this could be seen as a free speech issue - it was printed, wasn't it? Or that some would suggest oversensitivity on the part of the people who suffered extreme losses in the Holocaust. Or maybe I can - there is a car with a huge Böhse Onkelz sticker parked down the street, after all...

>> shakes head, gets back to work...
15:21 November 26, 2009 by Rimini
I think it's a bit tasteless because the memorial itself isn't that old. It's less an architectural sight than it is, indeed, a memorial at this point.

Give it a decade or so and you can do photoshoots there. Now it's too soon.
15:28 November 26, 2009 by BigEnglish2009
I wonder if Easyjet will burn as many copies of the magazine that they could get their hands on.
15:48 November 26, 2009 by handy
Any chance it could have been a planned stunt to raise the numbers of people who see the photos or to get free advertising by any number of the companies involved???? Come on you cant tell me that no one in the whole process from model to final editor didn?t pick up on where the photo was taken???
15:52 November 26, 2009 by Moonboot
my EJ chum says the magazine bought the article and added it without checking properly.
15:59 November 26, 2009 by handy
Guess the final editor is looking for a new job now?
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