"You're being a Nazi by mandating masks and vaccines."
"'Papers, please.' I refuse as a condition of entering a store or attending a concert."
"What's next, quarantining the unvaccinated into camps?"
"Vaccine mandates violate the Nuremberg Code."
"Do I need to remind you of the late 1930s and into the '40s in Germany and the experiments with Josef Mengele? What was it? A shot? These were crimes against humanity."
And on, and on, and on. I've had enough.
How quickly we forget history. The Holocaust is the most horrific event in the history of humankind. Adolf Hitler, his Nazi regime, and its collaborators systemically murdered six million Jewish men, women, and children, along with 11 million others, to serve the racial, religious, ethnic, and political policies of the Nazi Party. 1945 may seem like a long time ago, but 76 years is only a few generations removed. In fact, there are approximately 195,000 Holocaust survivors still alive today.
I'm appalled that I even have to explain the difference between the Nazis and the Holocaust and a life-saving vaccine and other measures designed to keep us healthy and safe during a pandemic. But, alas, the rise of anti-Semitism and Nazi symbolism targeted as those who favor vaccines and other mandates is hard to ignore.
So here is my proposal for anyone who insists on likening Covid health and safety measures — including vaccine mandates, mask mandates, and vaccine passports — to Nazis or the Holocaust.
The other night I was flipping channels when I came across the Twilight Zone movie from the early 1980s. The first vignette starred Vic Morrow playing a Jew-hating guy who had just lost out on a promotion to a Jewish co-worker. After going an anti-Semitic (and among other nasties) tirade to a couple of other co-workers during happy hour, Morrow leaves the bar to find himself inside Nazi Germany during WWII. As it turns out, he became (or is at least being seen as) a Jew, and ultimately ends up with a yellow star slapped on his chest as a Nazi soldier places him in a boxcar headed to a concentration camp.
For anyone confusing Covid safety rules with the Holocaust, think of Vic Morrow's character and his fate, and decide if you need to learn this difference the hard way.