Surgical face masks are photographed for illustration photo during the spread of coronavirus.

  • Serge Vinograd, a Holocaust survivor, criticised Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for comparing wearing a mask during the pandemic to Jews being forced to wear yellow stars.
  • "In one case, it is to protect life, in the other case it was the first step to elimination," Serge said.

  • In the video, posted by Serge's daughter, journalist Cassandra Vinograd, Serge says that most of his family was killed during the Holocaust.

"I would like to meet representative Greene to explain to her the difference between wearing a mask in the USA during the pandemic, and wearing a yellow stars, like the Jews had to, during World War II," Serge Vinograd said.

"In one case, it is to protect life, in the other case it was the first step to elimination," Serge Vinograd said.

"I'm a witness to what happened. I saw Jews being arrested, shot, deported. I saw the reactions of people wearing the yellow stars in the beginning. Their reaction, mine, my sister's, the reactions of people in the streets, in school, the way that the Germans treated people wearing the yellow star," he added.

On Tuesday, Greene compared vaccination badges that a grocery store was opting to have vaccinated employees wear instead of masks to the yellow star that Nazis forced Jews to wear during the Shoah.

The Auschwitz Museum condemned Greene as well.

This was the second comment in less than a week where Greene made comparing pandemic precautions to the horrors of the Holocaust, where 6 million Jews were killed as part of the Nazi's so-called Final Solution, and many Roma and Sinti, disabled people, gay people, Jehovah's Witnesses, Poles, and political prisoners were killed in concentration camps.

Last week, Greene compared Pelosi's mask mandate to the systematic killing of Jews by the Nazis.

She told the program "Real America's Voice": "You know, we can look back at a time in history when people were told to wear a gold star, and they were definitely treated like second-class citizens, so much so that they were put in trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany. And this is exactly the type of abuse that Nancy Pelosi is talking about."

While more than 90% of the Senate has been vaccinated, CNN writes that "more than 100 Republicans in the House still won't disclose their vaccine status," therefore Pelosi is still mandating masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy waited until Tuesday, when Greene's follow-up tweet was posted, to condemn the language.

"It was a way to find out how Jews would be segregated and then eliminated," Serge Vinograd said. "The mask was a step to protect people, the star was a way to segregate people and move to the final solution, and to eliminate them."

"Six million Jews were arrested, killed, and never came back. I would like to explain to Rep. Greene that you cannot, and should not compare the two," he added.

https://www.businessinsider.co.za/holocaust-survivor-blasts-mtg-for-comparing-masks-to-holocaust-2021-5