Holocaust Victims Mocked In Ohio State Band Songbook

A Wall Street Journal investigation uncovered book of parody songs, updated in 2012 and circulated privately by members of the Ohio State University marching band, that included a song about the Holocaust with joking references to furnaces used in Nazi concentration camps.

The song, called “Goodbye Kramer,” includes lines about Nazi soldiers “searching for people livin’ in their neighbor’s attic,” and a “small town Jew…who took the cattle train to you know where.” It was written to be sung to the tune of Journey's “Don’t Stop Believin’.”

The school released a statement that said the songbook was a reflection of the kind of “shocking behavior” that Ohio State is “committed to eradicating from its marching band program.”

An introduction to the book said: “Some of these [songs] may be offensive to you. If so, you can either ignore them, or you can suck it up, act like you got a pair and have a good time singing them. Take it with you on trips and to parties. But never leave this out of your sight. This book is for OSUMB members only, Past and Present. If they were not out on the field in front of 105,000 crazy fans in black (OK, navy blue) wool uniforms, they do not deserve to see this.”

The songbook noted “Goodbye Kramer” as a new addition, along with a parody of the fight song of University of Nebraska, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Matt Cominski, a band member who wrote the parody Nebraska fight song that included several antigay jokes and beastiality, said he had “a lot of confidence that it was never going to see the light of day. I knew a lot of people in the band were gay and they knew I wasn’t being serious. If I were writing to a broader audience or anyone other than a few close friends I would be horrified by those words.”

Some of the lines in the song include “Nebraska got f----- in their cornholes” and “It’ll soften our d---- if there’s chicks in the mix.” Another Nebraska song starts with this lyrics: “There’s no place as gay as Nebraska, except maybe Michigan U. Where the girls are all hairy, and the boys are all fairies, on your chest we will poo.”

The existence of the songbook containing crude parodies first became known in July 2014 after a university-led investigation into the band’s culture. The director, Jon Waters, said the songs—which also featured lyrics about rape, bestiality and homosexuality—had been out of circulation for years, but a second investigation mentioned that the updated songbook contained a “highly offensive song regarding Jews." 

Waters said he said he knew of the songbook in the 1990s when he was a member of the band, but that his predecessor, Jon Woods, had banned it.

“I understood it to be gone. It had been outlawed for a long, long time and was something that was very much on the underground.” Waters said, noting that he had never seen the 2012 version of the book. “If something like that exists, that’s disgusting. I never saw anything like that.”

Lee Auer, the former band member who wrote the 2012 songbook’s introduction, said: “I don’t think you are going to find many 19-year-olds who don’t joke about those things. It was fun for me as an individual, but we knew if the public ever caught wind of them, people are going to lose respect. Now, I feel worse about it than I ever did.”

In their statement, Ohio State stressed that the school is in the midst of reforming the band’s culture.

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