Groups condemn anti-vaccine protesters
HOLOCAUST SYMBOL
MONTREAL• Jewish groups are denouncing anti-vaccine protesters’ attempts to draw parallels between Quebec’s COVID-19 health guidelines and the Holocaust.
On Tuesday, dozens of protesters gathered outside a Montreal-area gym to protest the province’s vaccine passport, many of whom wore yellow stars with the words “sans vaccin” written on them. The gym was one of a few Quebec businesses chosen for a pilot project to test the passport before its implementation in September.
The Montreal Holocaust Museum took to Twitter Wednesday to condemn the protesters, reminding people of the history behind the symbol: Jewish people living under the Nazis were forced to wear yellow stars for identification purposes.
“This symbol allowed the Nazis to target, persecute, and murder millions of Jews,” the museum said. “Notably, the badges facilitated the persecution of Jews by identifying them during mass arrests and later deportations. As a result, the yellow star has become a painful symbol of Jewish discrimination and the Holocaust.”
Benoit Charette, Quebec’s minister responsible for the fight against racism, condemned the protesters Wednesday, saying they “clearly don’t know their own history.”
“They don’t know the history of our people, of our planet; they don’t understand it,” he said. “They have to understand the (severity) of this symbol, and the measures that we put in place in Quebec are there to protect the population, so there’s no link ... There’s no tiny link that we can do with this strong symbol.”
“And we have to condemn them,” Charette added.
Eta Yudin, the vice-president of CIJA Quebec, said she’s glad political leaders are speaking out and that she suspects most Quebecers would be shocked by the comparison.
“The yellow star was the symbol of the repression of fundamental human rights for Jewish people as part of the genocidal project to eliminate the Jewish people,” she said. “To use that as a symbol of protest on whatever side of an issue one may be trivializes the Holocaust, the memory of the Holocaust ... and the lessons learned from the Holocaust about hate, genocide and the importance of fighting hatred.”