The Auschwitz Memorial denounced comments made by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s at an anti-vaccine rally in Washington DC on Sunday as “exploiting the tragedy” of the Holocaust.
During a speech at the rally, Kennedy, a conspiracy theorist and prominent anti-vaxxer, warned of a massive surveillance network being created with satellites in space and 5G mobile networks collecting data.
“Even in Hitler’s Germany, you could hide in the attic like Anne Frank did,” Kennedy said, illustrating his point that surveillance today is all-encompassing.
Anne Frank, who died in a Nazi concentration camp, achieved posthumous fame for a diary in which she documented her family’s two years in hiding.
In a response to a video of the speech on Twitter, the Auschwitz Memorial said Kennedy’s remarks were “a sad symptom of moral & intellectual decay.”
“Exploiting of the tragedy of people who suffered, were humiliated, tortured & murdered by the totalitarian regime of Nazi Germany — including children like Anne Frank — in a debate about vaccines & limitations during global pandemic is a sad symptom of moral & intellectual decay,” the organization wrote in a statement.
The speech came as thousands of demonstrators marched in Washington on Sunday to protest vaccine mandates.
In a statement to the Hill, Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) said no arrests or police reports have been made from the gathering at the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument.
D.C. government recently implemented a mandate requiring that city businesses — such as restaurants, bars, gyms, entertainment venues and nightclubs — check that patrons over the age of 12 have gotten one dose of the vaccine.
An Associated Press investigation found that Kennedy’s anti-vaccine charity, called Children’s Health Defense, saw its revenue double in 2020 to $6.8 million as the coronavirus pandemic took hold.
He was among a number of prominent anti-vax speakers at the rally, including Dr. Robert Malone, who prompted calls for Spotify to control COVID misinformation after appearing on Joe Rogan’s podcast, and Lara Logan, a former CBS News correspondent.
In November, Logan, who is now a host on Fox News Media’s streaming service, compared Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, to the infamous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, who worked at Auschwitz during the Holocaust.