Jimmy Carr sparks fury with Holocaust routine in Netflix special

Comedian Jimmy Carr has sparked outrage for a routine about the Holocaust in his latest Netflix stand-up special.

Carr has been described as "truly disturbing" for making light of the murders of hundreds of thousands of people from Europe's traveller communities during World War Two.

The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust said it was "absolutely appalled".

Netflix, which has been urged to remove the special, declined to comment. Carr has also not commented.

Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries said the comments were "abhorrent and they just shouldn't be on television".

Carr's programme, titled His Dark Material, was released on the streaming platform on Christmas Day but the clip about the Holocaust came to light more widely when it was shared on social media.

The comedian, who introduced his show as being "a career ender" and warned it contained "terrible things", said a "positive" of the Holocaust was that thousands of Gypsies were murdered.

The comments were greeted with applause and laughter from the audience.

Between 200,000 and 500,000 Roma and Sinti people were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators, according to the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.

The charity's chief executive Olivia Marks-Woldman said: "We are absolutely appalled at Jimmy Carr's comment about persecution suffered by Roma and Sinti people under Nazi oppression, and horrified that gales of laughter followed his remarks.

"Hundreds of thousands of Roma and Sinti people suffered prejudice, slave labour, sterilisation and mass murder simply because of their identity - these are not experiences for mockery."

Ms Dorries suggested the government could legislate to stop comedy people find offensive being shown on streaming platforms. "We're already looking at future legislation to bring into scope those sort of comments," she told the BBC.

Asked about a previous Tweet where she said "left-wing snowflakes are killing comedy", Ms Dorries replied: "Well, that's not comedy."

Anti-racism campaign group Hope Not Hate said Carr "celebrates" the suffering of the Roma and Sinti people, and called on Netflix to "take action".

The Traveller Movement - a charity supporting the traveller community in the UK - also asked Netflix to remove the one-hour special. It said the segment in question was "truly disturbing and goes way beyond humour".

It added: "Joking about the genocide of an ethnic minority is not funny."

Fellow comedian David Baddiel tweeted that Holocaust jokes can be "cruel and inhumane and mean-spirited and racist" or they can target oppressors and draw attention to its fundamental evil - saying: "Clearly, Jimmy Carr's was the former."

The Auschwitz Memorial called for Carr to learn about the Roma and Sinti people deported to the concentration camp, adding on Twitter: "It's sad to hear words that can fuel prejudice, hurt people & defile memory of their tragedy."

SNP MP Martin Docherty-Hughes, who is co-chairman of the House of Commons All Party Parliamentary Group for Gypsies, Travellers and Roma, wrote on Twitter that he was "utterly speechless at this disregard for the horror of the holocaust" and its impact on the Gypsy community of Europe.

He added: "A community butchered by the Nazi regime. @NetflixUK care to comment?"