6 June 27 • 2019
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Nazis seem to be everywhere 
these days. I don’
t mean self-pro-
claimed neo-Nazis. I’
m talking about 
folks being labeled as Nazis, Hitler, 
Gestapo, Goering 
 — take your 
pick 
 — by their political opponents. 
American politicians from across the 
ideological spectrum, 
influential media 
figures and ordinary 
people on social 
media casually use 
Holocaust terminol-
ogy to bash anyone 
or any policy with 
which they disagree. 
The takedown is so 
common that it’
s even earned its own 
term, reductio ad Hitlerum.
This trend is far from new, but it 
is escalating at a disturbing rate in 
increasingly polarized times. The 
Holocaust has become shorthand for 
good vs. evil; it is the epithet to end 
all epithets. And the current environ-
ment of rapid-fire online communi-
cation and viral memes lends itself 
particularly well to this sort of sloppy 
analogizing. Worse, it allows it to 
spread more widely and quickly.
This oversimplified approach to 
complex history is dangerous. When 
conducted with integrity and rigor, 
the study of history raises more 

questions than it answers. And as 
the most extensively documented 
crime the world has ever seen, the 
Holocaust offers an unmatched case 
study in how societies fall apart, in 
the immutability of human nature, in 
the dangers of unchecked state power. 
It is more than European or Jewish 
history. It is human history. Almost 
40 years ago, the United States 
Congress chartered a Holocaust 
memorial on the National Mall for 
precisely this reason: The questions 
raised by the Holocaust transcend all 
divides.
Neither the political right nor 
left has a monopoly on exploiting 
the 6 million Jews murdered in a 
state-sponsored, systematic cam-
paign of genocide to demonize or 
intimidate their political opponents. 
Conservative media figures explic-
itly likened Parkland, Fla., students 
advocating for tightened gun control 
to Hitler Youth, operating in the 
service of a shadowy authoritarian 
conspiracy. This allegation included 
splicing images of these students 
onto historical film footage of Nazi 
rallies, reflecting the ease with which 
many Americans associate the sound 
of German shouting with a threat to 
personal liberties. 
Perhaps most popular have been 

accusations of “Nazism” and “fas-
cism” against federal authorities for 
their treatment of children separated 
from their parents at the U.S. bor-
der with Mexico. “Remember, other 
governments put kids in camps,” is a 
typical rallying cry from some immi-
gration advocates. Even a person as 
well-versed in the tenuous balance 
between national security and com-
passion, the former head of the CIA, 
took to Twitter to criticize federal 
policies toward illegal migrants using 
a black and white photo of the iconic 
train tracks leading to the Auschwitz-
Birkenau killing center. 
Nazi comparisons have also been 
leveled against the federal govern-
ment in connection with a travel ban 
on individuals from predominantly 
Muslim countries. Animal rights 
proponents have consistently decried 
what they call “the Holocaust on 
your plate” in critiquing today’
s meat 
industry. The list goes on.
It is all too easy to forget that 
there are many people still alive for 
whom the Holocaust is not “history,” 
but their life story and that of their 
families. These are not abstract trag-
edies on call to win an argument or 
an election. They carry the painful 
memories of the brutal murder of 
a cherished baby boy, the rape of a 

commentary
Why Holocaust Analogies Are Dangerous

statement

No More Holocaust 
Analogies

The Holocaust Memorial Center in 
Michigan, along with Holocaust muse-
ums in Dallas, Florida, Illinois, Los 
Angeles and New York 
City, feel compelled to 
address Rep. Alexandria 
Ocasio-Cortez’
s recent 
decision to evoke com-
parisons of the condi-
tions of migrants seeking 
asylum in the U.S. to vic-
tims of the Holocaust.
While we are con-
cerned for the plight of these migrants, 
particularly children, and the deplorable 
conditions of the centers in which they 
are being detained, allusions to the 
Holocaust are completely inappropriate 
and offensive. 
The Nazi regime targeted Europe’
s 
Jews for murder. It created a vast forced 
labor and camp system to exploit Jewish 
laborers before murdering them. Ocasio-
Cortez’
s inaccurate reference diminishes 
the inexpressible horror suffered at 
the hands of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi 
regime and wrongly equates current U.S. 
immigration policy with the systematic 
murder of 6 million Jews and the perse-
cution of millions of others.
We encourage our elected officials to 
read the powerful essay, “Why Holocaust 

views

Edna 
Friedberg, 
Ph.D.

Eli Mayerfeld

continued on page 10
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