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Pogromly, the Game As Clever As Its Name

Neo-Nazis caught distributing it in Germany

by
Marc Tracy
December 06, 2011
A Pogromly board.(Haaretz)
A Pogromly board.(Haaretz)

First there was Warsaw Ghetto Monopoly—a version of the classic board game that was actually made in the ghetto by its unfortunate inhabitants. There is also Train, a high-concept game that interrogates notions of complicity by making the player put yellow figurines on trains bound for the camps; “Train is over when it ends,” reads the game’s instructions.

But Pogromly, another Monopoly rip-off, is not, er, so well intended. It’s distributed by German neo-Nazis, as early as 1997 and as recently as last month. The board has a picture of Hitler and swastikas. I don’t even want to know what happens if you land on the “Go to Jail” spot.

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.