Politicizing the Holocaust dehumanizes us all

As a child of Holocaust survivors, nothing is more sacred and important to me than preserving the memory of this period. The international community has made great strides in educating the world about it.

Just last week, the United Nations adopted a resolution by consensus against Holocaust denial, while Egypt commemorated International Holocaust Remembrance Day for the very first time, in an event sponsored by Cairo's US embassy and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Yet as we mark this year's International Holocaust Remembrance Day, I am terribly saddened by efforts to minimize the atrocities and manipulate the memory of the Holocaust for political gain here at home.

Seventy-seven years after the end of the Second World War, we have witnessed a disturbing surge in the politicization of Holocaust imagery that has distorted and warped its memory in disgraceful ways, often tied to debates about the Covid-19 pandemic or Israeli policy. The incidents are an affront to the memory of Holocaust victims and to all who espouse to support human rights.

In May, a group calling itself "Goy Power" showed up at a pro-Israel rally in a van carrying the message "Hitler was Right." In November, attendees wore yellow stars to a hearing of the Kansas state legislature to discuss Covid-19 policies in the workplace.

This was followed by a host on Fox News going so far as to compare Dr. Anthony Fauci with Josef Mengele, the sadistic SS "physician" known as the "angel of death." In 2019, New York Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez compared border facilities to "concentration camps," and earlier this month, Ohio GOP Rep. Warren Davidson compared the Covid-19 vaccination policies in Washington, DC, to the Nazi regime on Twitter. He later apologized.