The ADC, Australia’s leading organisation fighting anti-Semitism and hatred in all its forms, has denounced the NSW Young Greens for claiming that the government and Labor like “locking people in concentration camps.” This was posted on their Facebook Page.
Dr Dvir Abramovich, Chairman of the ADC, issued the following statement:
“Cynically using the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust to criticise the government’s and Labor’s detention policy trivialises and cheapens the murder of millions of people, insults their memory and needlessly causes further pain to the survivors. Yes, we should have a debate about Australia’s detention policy, and yes The NSW Young Greens are of course free to voice their concerns. However, to suggest that these policies can in any way be equated to the circumstances of the concentration camps where millions were exterminated, and where children were torn from their mothers’ arms and pushed into the gas chambers, crosses many red lines and shows a gross lack of historical understanding about the crimes that Hitler and his evil regime committed. In no way can the steps taken by the Australian government and Labor’s policy be equated to the Third Reich’s deliberate, systematic and mechanised annihilation of six million Jews and millions of others in concentration camps. I am increasingly alarmed about the debasement and coarsening of discussion about the Holocaust. We call on Richard Di Natale to tell the NSW Greens that invoking hurtful and shockingly insensitive comparisons to the Nazi death camps in order to score a political point is misguided and unacceptable, and urge them to apologise.”
The B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission, founded in 1979, is Australia’s leading organization fighting racism through educational programs that combat bigotry, prejudice and all forms of hatred.
For further information please contact Dr Dvir Abramovich on 9272 5677.