Five leading Jewish organizations in The Netherlands have called on political factions in the House of Representatives to speak out strongly against comparisons between the situation around Covid-19 and the Holocaust.
Their call came after the recent uproar around the publication of images showing young people marching through a Dutch city in Nazi uniforms as they were protesting against the government Covid-19 measures. They claimed to be treated the same way as Jews were during the Second World War.
Photos online showed one of them wearing prisoner stripes and a Star of David, while the others aim fake weapons at him.
In a letter to the parliament, the five organizations- the Nieuw Israelistisch Werkblad, the Central Jewish Consultation (CJO), the Israel Information and Documentation Center (CIDI), the Dutch Auschwitz Committee and the National Holocaust Museum wrote: “We not only find it extraordinarily painful; it also makes the lessons to be learned from the darkest period in the 20th century inflationary.’’
“We simply emphasize the fact that people who freely choose to not be vaccinated are compared with population groups who had no choice at all at the time. They were murdered. Just because of who they were,” they added.
They noted that this happens not only on the street and social media but also with members of the House of Representatives.
The appeal was made as the first national Holocaust Monument was unveiled on Sunday in Amsterdam in the presence of King Willem-Alexander, commemorating the 102,000 Jews murdered in the Netherlands during the Second World War and hundreds of murdered Sinti and Roma.
Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema said she had been “appalled” to see demonstrators wearing the yellow badges, yet there was little she could do because “since there was no call to discriminate against Jews, a crime did not take place.”