Conspiracy theorists ‘have been exploiting the Covid pandemic’
The coronavirus pandemic has been" deliberately exploited"by people seeking to spread conspiracy theories and instil hatred, the chief executive of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (HMDT) has warned.
Olivia Marks-woldman urged people to "take responsibility" for their words, and to stand up against those seeking to create tensions.
It came after a "deeply worrying" period which saw riots, including those unrelated to the pandemic, across America and beyond.
They included disturbances last summer following the death of George Floyd in police custody, and the storming of the US Capitol earlier this month after then-president Donald Trump used allegedly inflammatory words to stir up his supporters.
Speaking ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day on January 27, which remembers the genocide of millions of Jews and other minorities during the Second World War at the hands of the Nazis, Ms Markswoldman said she was "troubled" by the impact of "divisive language" used to pit communities against each other.
She said: "What we've seen that's really worried us is that the pandemic has been deliberately exploited by some people to spread conspiracy theories that scapegoat minorities - whether it's blaming all Chinese people for the virus, blaming Jewish people for deliberately creating the virus and spreading it.
"We have seen numerous conspiracy theories propagated and spread online and that shows how very necessary Holocaust Memorial Day is, and we hope people will be learning about that and be doing what they can to challenge that when they see it."
Holocaust survivors echoed her concerns, and said lessons from the Holocaust remained as relevant, decades later.
Martin Stern, who survived the Theresienstadt concentration camp in German-occupied Czechoslovakia, said there was a "worldwide deficit" about what democracy means.
Speaking from his home in Leicester, the 82-year-old retired doctor said: "It (democracy) does not mean rushing up the steps of the government buildings in Washington DC and running a riot which leads to death. It means respecting the views of the other, even if you disagree with the other.”