Netflix's Historical Roasts is under fire for showing "Adolf Hitler" roasting "Anne Frank"

Times of Israel

The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam called Jeff Ross' new show roasting historical figures "tasteless satire" for an episode in which Gilbert Gottfried's Hitler "roasts" Anne Frank, played by Rachel Feinstein. “Everyone knows you as a hero and a best-selling author, but to me you’ll always be little number 825060,” Gottfried as Hitler said to Frank, who was killed in the Holocaust at age 15. Gottfried's Hitler also said: “Of all the accounts that I’ve read, Anne, your book is by far the most flammable.” Feinstein's Frank responded: “You tried to break us, but today the Jewish people are thriving more than ever. In fact, guess what, Hitler. You’re being played by a Jew right now, and it’s the loudest most annoying Jew we could possibly find!” The Information and Documentation Center on Israel, a Dutch anti-Semitism watchdog, said the comedy was “unwelcome," adding that “it is sometimes forgotten that there are survivors and that traumas live on in other generations.” Ross, Gottfried and Feinstein are all Jewish. Many viewers in the Netherlands also expressed their dismay with the episode. Netflix said in a statement that the episode was a source of lengthy internal discussions, adding: "These were difficult conversations, but most of the time we favor the creative freedom of the (content) creators." In introducing the "Anne Frank" episode, Ross said: "I only kid the ones I love, and Anne Frank is close to my heart. When we talk about the Holocaust we always say 'never forget,' yet genocides continue to take place all over the world." In an interview published last week with Entertainment Weekly, Ross explained why he chose to roast Anne Frank. “Everybody would say, ‘Why don’t you roast Hitler, that would be hilarious,'” said Ross. “But I have to stay true to my mission of only roasting people that I admire. I only roast the ones I love. With Anne Frank, it seemed like too many people were forgetting her story. In order to never forget, you have to be enlightened to what happened.” ALSO: An episode devoted to roasting Anne Frank should have left Hitler's genitals out of it.