The Harvard Lampoon, Harvard University’s satirical magazine, apologized for publishing a photoshopped image of Holocaust victim Anne Frank’s head on an image of a woman in a bikini.
The Lampoon used the headline “Gone Before Her Time: Virtual Aging Technology Shows Us What Anne Frank Would Have Looked Like if She Hadn’t Died” to accompany the image.
The Harvard Lampoon is garbage pic.twitter.com/q4BAUS4ibI
— Cat Zhang (@CatZhang1) May 13, 2019
“We realize the extent of offense we have inflicted and understand that we must take responsibility for our action,” editors for the Lampoon wrote in a statement Tuesday. “We as individuals and we as an organization would like to apologize for our negligence in allowing this piece to be created for and printed in our latest issue. We are sorry for any harm we have caused.”
“Furthermore, we want to both affirm and emphasize that the Lampoon condemns any and all forms of anti-Semitism,” the statement said.
The editors added that they will use “greater care” when selecting content for the magazine in the future and will “come up with a series of further steps to improve our publication and organization as a whole.” Those specific changes will be unveiled in the summer.
Harvard’s Hillel director Rabbi Jonah Steinberg reached out to the publication on Sunday and blasted their decision to publish the image of Frank, who died at the age of 15 in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in World War II. The Harvard Crimson reports that Steinberg compared publishing the content “to the obscenity of the Nazis.”
“Your depiction of Anne Frank’s face grafted to pinup imagery goes far beyond the distastefulness and provocativeness you obviously intend. It is the sexual violation of a child — one who, in life, was subjected to the most hideous of crimes,” Steinberg wrote in his email, according to the Crimson.
The image also attracted scrutiny from students on campus. More than 250 students signed a petition condemning the Lampoon on Sunday that was shared on Facebook.
