House GOP leaders condemned comments from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) comparing mask-mandates and vaccine passports to the treatment of Jews by Nazis and said Americans need to reject attempts to diminish the horrors of the Holocaust.
“Marjorie is wrong, and her intentional decision to compare the horrors of the Holocaust with wearing masks is appalling. The Holocaust is the greatest atrocity committed in history,” said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy in a statement Wednesday morning. “The fact that this needs to be stated today is deeply troubling.”
Marjorie is wrong, and her intentional decision to compare the horrors of the Holocaust with wearing masks is appalling.
Let me be clear: the House Republican Conference condemns this language.
My full statement: https://t.co/KnliN3YbJ2
— Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) May 25, 2021
Hours before McCarthy’s condemnation, Green shared a news story on Twitter about a store dropping its face-mask requirements for employees who indicate that they’ve been vaccinated. She wrote: “Vaccinated employees get a vaccination logo just like the Nazi’s forced Jewish people to wear a gold star. Vaccine passports & mask mandates create discrimination against unvaxxed people who trust their immune systems to a virus that is 99% survivable.”
Vaccinated employees get a vaccination logo just like the Nazi’s forced Jewish people to wear a gold star.
Vaccine passports & mask mandates create discrimination against unvaxxed people who trust their immune systems to a virus that is 99% survivable.https://t.co/6X6VNolcA7
— Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) May 25, 2021
Greene defended herself, claiming she “never compared it to the Holocaust, only the discrimination against Jews in early Nazi years.” She later shared a video of herself — from last week — coming to the defense of Israel.
The Fake News has my permission to use this video from last week in your news reports. https://t.co/nmoPAezy5g
— Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) May 25, 2021
The Holocaust Memorial Museum says the Holocaust was “the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its allies and collaborators.” Before the campaign of mass extermination, one of the ways the Nazis persecuted Jews was by forcing them to wear a yellow star on their clothing.
The Simon-Wiesenthal Center-Museum of Tolerance Library and Archives notes of the Holocaust: “As of the 1950s the term refers to the destruction of some 6 million Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators in Europe between the years 1933-1945.”
McCarthy’s statement also comes after Greene invoked the star in an interview in which she talked about COVID-19 restrictions and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
“We can look back at a time in history where 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,” said Greene, reported WTRF.
House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY) also responded to Greene’s comments, saying Wednesday: “Equating mask wearing and vaccines to the Holocaust belittles the most significant human atrocities ever committed. We must all work together to educate our fellow Americans on the unthinkable horrors of the Holocaust.”
Equating mask wearing and vaccines to the Holocaust belittles the most significant human atrocities ever committed. We must all work together to educate our fellow Americans on the unthinkable horrors of the Holocaust. #NeverAgain
— Rep. Elise Stefanik (@RepStefanik) May 25, 2021
The Wall Street Journal reported that a spokesperson for Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) the No.2 House Republican leader, also “condemns these comparisons to the Holocaust.”