Ricky Gervais joked with Jon Stewart Wednesday that “Nazis must be stupid” not to have found Anne Frank and her family sooner.
Gervais visited “The Daily Show” to talk about his many projects, including collaborations with “An Idiot Abroad” star Karl Pilkington. Gervais said Pilkington believed the Franks were hiding out in the secret annex of an Amsterdam building during World War II because they didn’t want to pay rent — not because they were hiding from Nazis.
Stil, Gervais said, he was surprised the Nazis didn’t discover the secret annex sooner.
“Nazis must be stupid,” he said.
Stewart explained that the Nazis probably weren’t looking constantly for the “Diary of Anne Frank’” author and her family. They hid in an annex above her father’s offices for two years, beginning in July 1942. After they were found, Anne, her mother and her sister died in a concentration camp. Only her father, Otto Frank, survived.
“She didn’t live in a Nazi’s house… they didn’t come in everyday,” Stewart told Gervais, adding: “You should read the book. It’s not what you’re –”
“Well, that’s what I mean,” Gervais said. “She had time to write a book.”
Gervais later spun the debate: “Say what you want,” he told Stewart. “But I think the Nazis were useless. And that’s all I’m saying.”
“You’re not going to get a lot of pushback from me on that point,” Stewart said.
It was just the latest example of a phenomenon pointed out in Gervais’ show with Stephen Merchant and Warwick Davis, “Life is Short.” In the first episode, Liam Neeson asks why Gervais is able to “get away with” jokes about such dark subjects when others can’t.
“We don’t know,” Merchant says.
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