'Simply wrong': Anti-Defamation League slams anti-vaxxers for using the Star of David to symbolize their 'persecution'

Some members of the anti-vaccine movement have recently been wearing a yellow Star of David as a method of protesting against vaccine requirements in the United States. And the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is speaking out against this practice, declaring in an official statement that it “trivializes the experiences of the survivors and victims of the Holocaust.”

The ADL quoted its leader, Jonathan A. Greenblatt, as saying, “The Holocaust was a unique event in human history. European Jews were forced to wear yellow Stars of David by the Nazis as a kind of scarlet letter—a form of persecution and forced exclusion from society. It is simply wrong to compare the plight of Jews during the Holocaust to that of anti-vaxxers.”

Greenblatt added that “groups advancing a political or social agenda should be able to assert their ideas without trivializing the memory of the six million Jews slaughtered in the Holocaust.”

The ADL, in its April 5 article, noted that anti-vaccine activist Del Bigtree used Holocaust-era imagery during a recent event in Austin, Texas—and that the Auschwitz Memorial and Museum in Poland has vehemently criticized him for doing so. The Memorial/Museum asserted that equating “extermination camps like #Auschwitz” with “vaccination that saves human lives” is “a symptom of intellectual and moral degeneration.”

The ADL’s article also points out that social media giant Facebook recently announced it would no longer support anti-vaccination articles or ads.