cancel comic Travellers' group demands Netflix pull Jimmy Carr's comedy special over Nazi joke  

The comedian Jimmy Carr has been slammed for a “truly disturbing” reference to gypsies being killed by the Nazis.

In a widely shared clip of the stand-up show His Dark Material– which arrived on Netflix on Christmas Day – the comedian tells the audience: “Strap in everyone, you ready?

“When people talk about the Holocaust,” he continues, “they talk about the tragedy and horror of six million Jewish lives being lost to the Nazi war machine. But they never mention the thousands of gypsies that were killed by the Nazis.

“No one ever talks about that because no one wants to talk,” he says, “about the positives.”

The Traveller Movement in the UK posted the “joke” that they said went “way beyond humor”.

The national charity works in partnership with Irish Travellers, English Romany Gypsies and Roma, “in challenging discrimination and promoting inclusion”.

In a tweet this afternoon they posted: “@jimmycarr ‘No one ever wants to talk about the thousands of Gypsies killed by the nazis, because no one wants to talk about the positives'.

They then added: “This is truly disturbing and goes way beyond humor. We need all your support in calling this out. #StopTravellerHate @StopFundingHate.”

Numerous people have replied in disgust to the tweet with one person writing: “I am sickened to my stomach and will never watch this heathen of a man again.

“The suffering and horrors that these ppl, men, women and little children experienced and he gets a cheap laugh out of it. You disgust me @jimmycarr.”

Another added: “This is appalling. Anti-traveller hate is seemingly embedded in many walks of life in the U.K., and particularly among U.K. comics.”

Another person wrote: “As someone (when I was about 9 years old) who met Jewish survivors of the holocaust, who saw their tattooed numbers, and was told of the other ethnic groups killed by the Nazis, I have no words to describe my horror at those words.”

However, one dissenting voice suggested: “He is a comedian. Comedians make jokes. If you don't like those jokes, don't watch.”

One social media user tweeted a link to a January 2006 story in the Guardian that revealed how the BBC had issued an unreserved apology for remarks by Carr on Radio 4's Loose Ends which suggested all Gypsy women smelled.

A spokeswoman for the Gypsy Council had said at the time that they were angered but not surprised by the remarks.

Carr, whose website describes him as "one of the most distinctive new stars on television, radio and now the big screen" said on the long-running Saturday morning show over Christmas:

"The male gypsy moth can smell the female gyspy moth up to seven miles away - and that fact also works if you remove the word 'moth'."

The BBC apologised after an inquiry into the remarks. "This joke should never have been transmitted," said a spokesman. "We apologise unreservedly for any offence caused."