From News Nation:
“RFK Jr. apologizes for Anne
Frank comments at anti-vaccine mandate rally”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has
apologized for controversial comments he made invoking the name of Anne Frank
at an anti-vaccine mandate rally in Washington, D.C., on Sunday that sparked
backlash from Jewish groups. “I apologize for my reference to Anne Frank,
especially to families that suffered the Holocaust horrors,” Kennedy wrote on
Twitter on Tuesday. He said he meant to utilize “examples of past
barbarism” to illustrate “the perils from new technologies of control.” “To the
extent my remarks caused hurt, I am truly and deeply sorry,” he added.
Kennedy spoke at an anti-vaccine
mandate rally at the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday. During his remarks, he
appeared to suggest that unvaccinated Americans had harder lives than Anne, the
teenager who hid from the Nazis in a Dutch attic for roughly two years before
being caught and sent to a concentration camp, where she died. “What we’re
seeing today is what I call turnkey totalitarianism. They are putting in place
all of these technological mechanisms for control we’ve never seen before. It’s
been the ambition of every totalitarian state since the beginning of mankind to
control every aspect of behavior, of conduct, of thought and to obliterate
dissent. None of them have been able to do it. They didn’t have the
technological capacity,” Kennedy said at the rally. “Even in Hitler’s Germany, you could cross the
Alps into Switzerland. You could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did. 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 … but it was possible,” he
added. The son of former attorney general and presidential candidate Robert F.
Kennedy pointed to low-orbit satellites, 5G technology and digital currency as
initiatives he believes the U.S. will “put in place that will make it so none
of us can run and none of us can hide.” He also mentioned Bill Gates by name. Kennedy’s remarks sparked fierce criticism
from Jewish groups, which denounced the comments as offensive while also noting
their inaccuracy. Anne sought refuge in an attic in the Netherlands, not
Germany. “.@RobertKennedyJr invoking
Anne Frank’s memory and the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis as a comparison to
the U.S. gov’t working to ensure the health of its citizens is deeply
inaccurate, deeply offensive and deeply troubling,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the
CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote on Twitter on Monday. “This must
stop.”
The Auschwitz Memorial suggested
that Kennedy’s comments were “a sad symptom of moral & intellectual decay.”
“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 official
account for the memorial wrote on Twitter on Sunday. The Holocaust Museum sounded a similar note,
labeling politically motivated and “reckless comparisons to the Holocaust” as
“outrageous and deeply offensive.” “Those who carelessly invoke Anne Frank, the
star badge, and the Nuremberg Trials exploit history and the consequences of
hate,” the museum’s official Twitter account tweeted on Monday.
Kennedy’s wife, Cheryl Hines,
also joined the chorus of voices condemning the comments, writing on Twitter
that her husband’s reference to Anne “was reprehensible and insensitive.” “The
atrocities that millions endured during the Holocaust should never be compared
to anyone or anything. His opinions are not a reflection of my own,” Hines
added.
It’s not the first time that
Kennedy has referenced the Holocaust in remarks about vaccines. In 2015, while
criticizing vaccinating children, he said, “They get the shot, that night they
have a fever of 103 [degrees], they go to sleep, and three months later their
brain is gone. This is a Holocaust, what this is doing to our country.” Kennedy
later issued an apology to “all whom I offended.” Other critics of vaccine
mandates and other COVID-19 mitigation measures have similarly likened such
restrictions to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust in the past. Rep. Marjorie
Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) last year compared COVID-19 vaccine and mask rules to the
Holocaust before apologizing for the comments. She told reporters she “made a
mistake” in making such remarks and apologized.
^ Sadly, even 77 years after
World War 2 and the Holocaust ended there are many people around the United
States and the world that are either ignorant, Anti-Semitic or both about the
murder of 6 million Jews and 5 million of other groups (Homosexuals, Gypsies,
Freemasons, Slavs, the Disabled, etc.) Ordinary people within the US and the
world need to stand-up to these kinds of people to show that the Germans didn’t
win back in 1945 and neither have the Anti-Semites ^
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