Photo/Illutration Japan's Self-Defense Force aerobatics team Blue Impulse flies over the National Stadium, the main venue for the Tokyo Olympics in the capital, on July 21, skywriting Olympic rings. (Toshiyuki Hayashi)

Comedian Kentaro Kobayashi was dismissed as director of the Olympic Opening and Closing ceremonies over a past skit that made jokes about Holocaust victims, the problem-plagued Tokyo organizing committee said July 22.

The firing of Kobayashi, 48, came on the eve of the Opening Ceremony.

According to the committee, Kobayashi was in charge of coordinating the entire direction of the ceremonies. He was involved in planning and writing scripts for the stage productions after working as a member of comedy duo Rahmens.

A video of a skit by the duo recently spread on the internet, showing Kobayashi making light of the Holocaust and the victims.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization in Los Angeles, expressed outrage.

“Any person, no matter how creative, does not have the right to mock the victims of the Nazi genocide,” the center said in a statement issued on July 21. “The Nazi regime also gassed Germans with disabilities. Any association of this person to the Tokyo Olympics would insult the memory of 6 million Jews and make a cruel mockery of the Paralympics.”

The organizing committee moved quickly in dismissing the comedian for “having made mocking remarks in the past about the tragic event.”

“We offer our deep apology to the many Olympic officials as well as residents of Tokyo and the rest of the Japanese population for causing trouble and concerns at a time when the Olympic Games are just around the corner,” the committee said in a statement.

At a news conference given after the statement was released, Seiko Hashimoto, president of the organizing committee, said committee members discussed the matter until the morning of July 22 after they became aware of the skit late on July 21.

“We dismissed him because we needed to swiftly address the issue in consideration of the diplomatic ramifications,” she said. “We are deeply sorry about it.”

Kobayashi also issued an apology in a statement released through the committee.

His dismissal follows a string of Olympic-related resignations over inappropriate comments and actions, most recently a composer for the Opening Ceremony and a children’s book author who was scheduled to appear in a cultural event for the Games.

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