Just the facts - A closer look at the Covid-19 vaccine being rolled out across Aotearoa. How it works, why we need it and who developed it. Video / NZ Herald
Opinion
OPINION:
It takes a lot to startle me, but yesterday my anger boiled over. I had to pick my jaw up from the ground and rub my eyes in disbelief.
Sarah Mills, a NSW anti-vaxxer with a large following on social media, posted what I believe are unconscionable images ofher and her children with yellow patches in the shape of Stars of David pinned to their shirts with the words, "No Vax".
What is wrong with some people?
Elsewhere, she can be seen dressed in striped pyjamas similar to those worn by Jewish prisoners in killing centres like Auschwitz with the tag, "Prisoner 385968 reporting for duty."
That's right. This is how disgustingly low the discourse in our country has become.
Anti-vaxxer Sarah Mills pinned Stars of David patches on herself and her kids. Photo / Supplied
Portraying herself as a martyr and referencing the inexpressible suffering of the Jews, Mills would have you believe that in the middle of a global public health emergency, being encouraged to get vaccinated against Covid-19 to save lives is equivalent to the evil of Adolf Hitler's Final Solution to eradicate an entire race.
Yes, that Final Solution, the most horrendous event in human history – the systematic extermination of six million Jews and millions of others, including 1.5 million children.
Apparently, being asked to get the jab to stop the spread of this deadly disease can be likened to living as a Jew during the Third Reich.
Got it? Mills understands the oppression and torture of the Jews in the 1930s and 1940s.
I wonder whether before she relied on her Nazi analogies and wrote on Instagram, "history was repeating itself," Mills thought about the emaciated figures staring from behind barbed wire fences, about the kids torn from their mothers' arms and pushed into gas chambers, about the crematoriums in Auschwitz, about the death marches.
About the Roma, the mentally handicapped, homosexuals and others who were executed for being "different". About the mobile killing units and the ghettos.
You do not need to be a professor of history to know that there is a world of difference between the current situation and the horror and unspeakable crimes of the Nazis.
Sarah Mills also wore striped pyjamas like those seen in Nazi concentration camps. Photo / Supplied
I'm sure that Mills knows that the Jews in Nazi Germany were forced to wear the Yellow Star on the outside of their clothing to be identifiable as Jews.
The Nazis used the Yellow Star to humiliate, segregate and mark the Jews for annihilation.
If they refused to comply, they were shot on the spot.
Let me be very clear. Seeking to claim the status of a victim by crying "Nazism" and then seeming to trivialise and abuse the Holocaust is obscene and indefensible.
Mills will not get a free pass from me for her attention-seeking behaviour and shoddy historical comparisons to bolster her claims.
There is no excuse for anyone to enlist the Holocaust card, to misuse such supercharged and cruelly insensitive equations as a blunt tool to score political points.
Imagine the grief Holocaust survivors whose families were slaughtered would feel seeing these types of hurtful analogies hurled around.
References to Nazis, who represent the ultimate evil, and conjure the most horrific visions of suffering and depravity, are popping up in the anti-vax space with disturbing frequency and are obscenely poisoning this critical debate.
And although those who oppose vaccination should know better, in today's growing climate of division and cultural stupidity, anything goes.
I get why people like Mills and other activists are tempted to reference the policies of the Nazis in their campaign and why the appeal of invoking and exploiting this imagery is so alluring.
The Third Reich embodies a unique evil and is a convenient metaphor for illustrating the concept of right versus wrong.
It's also an effective instrument in demonising and smearing anyone with who you disagree.
Polish inmates from the Dachau concentration camp. Photo / Getty Images
If Mills met with a Holocaust survivor, they would tell her that nothing today comes even close to the unbridled racial hatred and the immensity of the terrors and barbarity of Hitler's Germany.
Such reliance on lazy and irresponsible analogies belittles the indescribable atrocities carried out on an industrial, monstrous scale.
It also dishonours the sacrifice made by our valiant Diggers who died to bring Hitler's reign to an end.
Consider, when you remove the historical associations and meaning from the Holocaust, you make it real hard to impart the timeless and universal lessons of this tragedy to present and future generations.
Such trivialisations make it easier for the Holocaust deniers who bombard the internet with misinformation and conspiracies.
So, if you feel the urge to reference the Holocaust just to stir emotions, inflame the debate or to win the argument, you are way out of line.
Watch your language and think twice before lunging for the Nazi lexicon.
There are plenty of strong words to criticise government policies and conduct vigorous conversation grounded in reason.
As one who has devoted his life to fighting anti-Semitism and bigotry, I've had enough with the improper Holocaust references.
Dr Dvir Abramovich is Chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission and Australia's leading anti-hate campaigner. The author of seven books, his forthcoming publication is The New War Against the Jews: Writing from the Trenches.
