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FRANKFURT AM MAIN: German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas lashed out on Sunday (November 22) against anti-mask protesters who compared themselves to Nazi victims, accusing them of trivializing the Holocaust and “mocking” the courage shown by the fighters of resistance.
The harsh words came after a young woman took the stage at a protest against coronavirus restrictions in Hannover on Saturday saying she felt “like Sophie Scholl,” the German student executed by the Nazis in 1943 for her role in the resistance. .
A video of the speech has already been viewed more than a million times on social media, with many harshly condemning the speaker.
“Anyone who compares himself to Sophie Scholl or Anne Frank today is scoffing at the courage it took to stand up to the Nazis,” Maas tweeted.
“It trivializes the Holocaust and shows an unbearable oblivion of history. Nothing connects the protests of the crown with the resistance fighters. Nothing!”
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In the clip, a butler is seen interrupting the woman on stage to hand over her high-visibility orange vest, saying her words amounted to “minimizing the Holocaust.”
“I’m not working security for such nonsense,” he is heard saying before being escorted.
The young woman, who identified herself as Jana, 22, breaks down in tears before dropping her microphone and leaving the stage.
‘INAPPROPRIATE AND WITHOUT FLAVOR’
In another incident last week, an 11-year-old girl addressed an anti-mask rally in the western city of Karlsruhe, comparing herself to Jewish teenager Anne Frank because she had had to celebrate her birthday in silence to prevent neighbors from hearing that she had invited. to friends.
Frank, whose diary written while in hiding in the Netherlands has been read by millions, was eventually betrayed and died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945.
The comparison sparked outrage and was called “inappropriate and in bad taste” by Karlsruhe police.
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Germany has long prided itself on confronting its Nazi past and acknowledging its “eternal responsibility” for the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were murdered.
However, the far-right AfD party has in recent years challenged Germany’s culture of remembrance, with high-level figures openly calling for the country to stop atoning for Nazi crimes.
Government measures introduced to stop the spread of the coronavirus have sparked large protests in Germany, attracting people from the far left, conspiracy theorists and right-wing extremists who claim the restrictions violate their civil rights.
Several hundred people gathered in Berlin on Sunday for another protest, a smaller turnout than expected.
Germany’s restaurants, bars, entertainment and cultural centers were ordered to close for the month of November to stop a rapid rise in infections, while schools and shops may remain open.
With the number of cases still hovering at record highs, Chancellor Angela Merkel and the leaders of Germany’s 16 states are expected to extend the lockdown or announce even tougher measures at a meeting on Wednesday.
“We have not gone as far as we would have liked,” Merkel told reporters on Sunday. “We certainly have more to do” to control the pandemic, he added.
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