“Even in Hitler Germany (sic), you could, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland. You could hide in an attic, like Anne Frank did,” said Kennedy, a prominent anti-vaccine advocate, in a speech at the Lincoln Memorial. “I visited, in 1962, East Germany with my father and met people who had climbed the wall and escaped, so it was possible. Many died, true, but it was possible.”
Kennedy’s historically inaccurate anti-Semitic remark ignores the fact that Frank and some 6 million other Jews were murdered by Nazis. Frank, who was a teenager at the time, hid in an attic in the Netherlands, not Germany, before she was caught and was sent to a concentration camp, where she died.
The Auschwitz Memorial
responded to Kennedy in a statement on Twitter, saying, “Exploiting of the tragedy of people who suffered, were humiliated, tortured & murdered by the totalitarian regime of Nazi Germany – including children like Anne Frank – in a debate about vaccines & limitations during global pandemic is a sad symptom of moral & intellectual decay.”
The son of former Attorney General and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy has a long history of spreading vaccine misinformation.
While there is no national vaccine mandate covering all Americans, various cities around the country, including Washington, have required proof of vaccination for access to many restaurants, bars, gyms and other private businesses. The federal government mandated vaccines for federal workers, but a federal judge in Texas blocked the administration from enforcing it on Friday. The administration’s attempt to mandate vaccines for large businesses was blocked by the US Supreme Court earlier this month, although it allowed a vaccine mandate for certain health care workers to go into effect nationwide. Some businesses have voluntarily mandated vaccines.
Sunday’s event, billed as a protest against vaccine mandates, featured speakers repeatedly spreading misinformation about vaccines and showcased several bigoted…
Source : cnn
