A video of a pug that was taught to give Nazi salute has been called “grossly offensive” by a leading Jewish figure.
Ephraim Borowski, 66, director of the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities (SCoJeC), told Airdrie Sheriff Court that the Holocaust should not be joked about and that doing so normalised anti –Semitism.
He was speaking at the trial of Mark Meechan, of Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, who filmed his girlfriend’s pug, Buddha responding to statements such as “gas the Jews” and “Sieg Heil”. He uploaded it to video sharing site, YouTube in April last year.
After complaints were made about the content of the film, entitled “M8 Yer Dugs a Nazi” he was arrested last year for allegedly committing a hate crime.
Mr Meechan, 29, denies any wrong doing, insisting he only did it to annoy his girlfriend Suzanne Kelly, also 29.
Mr Borowski, during his criticism of Mr Meechan, told the court how he lost members of his own family to the Holocaust, in which over six million Jews were murdered by Adolf Hitler’s Nazis.
He was shown the recording of the video in court and said: “It is grossly offensive, it stuns me that anyone should think it is a joke.
“My immediate reaction is that there is a clear distinction to be made between an off-hand remark and the amount of effort that is required to train a dog like that, I actually feel sorry for the dog.
“In many ways, the bit I found most offensive was the repetition of ‘gas the Jews’ rather than the dog itself.”
At the start of the clip, Mr Meechan said: “My girlfriend is always ranting and raving about how cute and adorable her wee dog is so I thought I would turn him into the least cute thing I could think of, which is a Nazi.”
In the video the dog is seen perking up when it hears the statements and appears to lift its paw to the “Sieg Heil” command in the video, which has now been viewed over three million times.
The dog is also filmed watching a rally led by Hitler at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.
Prosecutors alleged Mr Meechan communicated material that would cause fear and alarm and stir up hatred on religious grounds by posting a clip which was “anti-semitic in nature” to YouTube.
In addition to being charged with a hate crime, Mr Meechan also faces an alternative charge of publishing a video which was grossly offensive and aggravated by religious prejudice.
Giving evidence, Mr Borowski continued: “The other thing that struck me was the explicit statement that this was intended to give offence and intended to be the most offensive thing he could think of and then he says he isn’t a racist but unfortunately we hear that all the time from people.
“I’m no historian but it is the marching signal of the Nazi storm troopers who contributed and supported the murder of six million Jews including members of my own family and I take this all slightly personally.
“Material of this kind goes to normalise the anti-Semitic views that frankly we thought we had seen the last of.
“The Holocaust is not a subject for jocular content.”
Mr Borowski also told the court that sections of the Jewish community in Scotland felt threatened by the video’s contents and that the SCoJeC’s website was bombarded with abusive comments after it was published.
He added: “The threat is against the Jewish community and there is an echo chamber effect with people trying to be more offensive. 160 pages of messages about this were collected by us in a day, they supported it and it was extremely anti-Semitic.
“I did not find anything about the video humorous. Repeating over and over and over again in a positive and enthusiastic tone of voice to ‘gas the Jews’ is what this trial is all about, an offensive video and whether it is offensive or threatening.”
The court has also seen a second video where Meechan apologised for any offence the clips caused.
The trial before Sheriff Derek O’Carroll continues.