Argentinian President Alberto Fernandez came under fire for drawing similarities between the coronavirus pandemic and the Holocaust.
He compared COVID-19 to “one or two Holocausts” while speaking at a seminar for the 33 members of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). The event concluded on Aug. 18 in the capital of Buenos Aires.
The Delegación de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas (DAIA)—the umbrella organization of Argentina’s Jewish community—said “the systematic slaughter of 6 million Jews practiced by Nazism cannot and should not be equated with another situation.”
The Anti-Defamation League also condemned the president’s remarks, saying in a Twitter post on Monday that “evoking the 6 million Jews who were systematically murdered in the Holocaust to reference the tragic COVID global death toll is an affront to the victims of the Shoah.”
B’nai Brith International said in a statement on Twitter that Fernandez’s “trivialization” of the Holocaust is “unacceptable and deeply disrespects the victims of the greatest tragedy in the history of mankind.”
Also in May, Fernandez said the death toll from the coronavirus pandemic was similar to that of the 6 million people killed in the Holocaust, reported the news outlet AJN.
