Nazis Protest

From the DW:

“Munich bans use of Nazi 'Jewish star' at coronavirus protests”

Anti-lockdown protesters in Germany have come under fire for appropriating the horrors of the Holocaust. Several have dressed up as concentration camp prisoners and put on Nazi-era stars reading: "unvaccinated." The city of Munich banned the use of Nazi-era Stars of David at coronavirus protests on Sunday after participants were seen wearing them in recent weeks. Several protesters in cities across Germany have started wearing six pointed, yellow stars with the word "unvaccinated" emblazoned on them. From the color to the font, they're nearly identical to the badges Jewish people were forced to wear across Nazi-occupied territories during the Holocaust. Other anti-lockdown protesters have also dressed up in stripped prisoner uniforms — drawing comparison to concentration camp prisoners — and held up signs reading: "Masks will set you free" or "Vaccination will set you free." The slogans reference the "Arbeit macht frei" ("Work will set you free") signs that hung above several concentration camps, where millions of Jews were killed during the Holocaust. Demonstrators are using the highly questionable protest tactics to voice their opposition to mandatory coronavirus vaccines — despite the fact that the German government has repeatedly said it will not implement such a program.

Politicians slam anti-Semitic tactic:    Felix Klein, Germany's commissioner for the fight against anti-Semitism, said that wearing the altered Jewish stars was a "calculated breaking of a taboo," reported local public broadcaster Bayerische Rundfunk. The tactic has been used increasingly in protests in Germany, Klein said. In using symbols of the Holocaust to provoke at protests, he added, the demonstrators downplay the victims and their suffering. Other politicians have called for more cities and states to also ban the use of Nazi-era stars at protests and to label them as a form of incitement. Rüdiger Erben, a Social Democrat lawmaker in the state parliament of Saxony-Anhalt, said that the symbols have also appeared at protests in his state and that they have nothing to do with freedom of speech or freedom of assembly. Whoever puts on one of the stars is acting "as an anti-Semite of the most repulsive kind," Erben told news agency epd.  Protesters have been gathering for weeks in cities across Germany to demonstrate against the government's restrictions to stem the spread of COVID-19.  Although participant numbers are starting to dwindle, politicians and analysts have grown increasingly concerned about right-wing extremist radicalization at the demonstrations.

^ These tactics are just plain disgusting and show how the Germans (maybe not all of them, but a sizeable number) continue to be proud of their Nazi history and their country’s role in planning and carrying out the murder of millions upon millions of innocent men, women and children (Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals, Slavs, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Disabled, etc.) 2020 is the 75^th Anniversary of the end of World War 2, the defeat of Nazism and the end of the Holocaust, but you wouldn’t know it from everything going on within Germany. Germany today and the overall German attitude makes you think it is 1932 (when the Nazis rose to power) or 1938 (when Kristallnacht occurred.) The abuse and attacks on Jews in Germany (around Europe, around the US and around the world) is growing at an alarming rate. A lot of that can be traced to these kinds of displays of disrespect and ignorance. Germany (from the top-down) needs to do significantly more to stop this rising anti-Semitism. ^

https://www.dw.com/en/munich-bans-use-of-nazi-jewish-star-at-coronavirus-protests/a-53644792