Apparently the title loses something in translation, though. Because the way this holiday works is that a family is spending two months on a farm with conditions simulating the way they were in 1939 in the Nazi-occupied Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. You know, Gestapo, swastikas, that kind of entertaining stuff.
To make the experience as authentic as possible, food will be scarce and the family may be awakened in the middle of the night by actors posing as soldiers shouting “Heil Hitler” as they pound on their front door.
A Czech television executive conceded that the show is “a topic that is kind of controversial, a little bit,” but defends it as “programming that will educate people about life in that period.”
While the first episode drew half a million viewers who tuned in to be educated, not everyone regards the series as merely a Czech version of “Survivor: San Juan Del Sur.” Especially those for whom the word “survivor” has a much deeper meaning.
“Fortunately for the family they will not be treated like the 82,309 Jews who lived in the protectorate,” noted a columnist for The Times of Israel, alluding to the real reality that many of them were deported to the nearest death camps.
Or, as another critic put it: “What are they going to do next? Big Brother Auschwitz?”
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