Topline
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. apologized Tuesday for comments he made at a Sunday anti-vaccine rally suggesting that modern Americans opposed to Covid-19 vaccines have it tougher than Anne Frank did—comments his wife, Cheryl Hines, called “reprehensible”—in the latest example of activists equating vaccine and mask mandates to the Holocaust.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appears in a video for Children’s Health Defense, his antivaccine nonprofit.
Children’s Health Defense
Key Facts
At a Washington, D.C. rally organized by his nonprofit Children’s Health Defense, which has campaigned against vaccinations, Kennedy opined that “even in Hitler’s Germany, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland, you could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did,” options supposedly not available to modern vaccine skeptics.
Kennedy apologized Tuesday for referencing Frank, tweeting that he only intended “to use examples of past barbarism to show the perils for new technologies of control.”
Kennedy’s wife, Curb Your Enthusiasm actress Cheryl Hines, tweeted Tuesday that her husband’s reference to Frank was “reprehensible and insensitive” and that his opinions did not reflect her views.
At the Children’s Health Defense rally, Kennedy claimed that digital currency would be used to cut off food supplies and that satellites, including some owned by Bill Gates, would soon be used to constantly observe “every square inch of the planet.”
Key Background
Antivaccine activists have repeatedly sought to compare mask and vaccine mandates to the systematic and ruthless annihilation of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust. The yellow Star of David, which the Nazis compelled Jews to wear, has been used by Rep. Jim Walsh (R-N.Y.), the Oklahoma Republican Party and by protesters in Alaska, Kansas and New York to suggest that unvaccinated people have similarly been oppressed. Kennedy has repeatedly invoked Nazi comparisons while speaking for Children’s Health Defense, publishing a video including an image of White House Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci with a superimposed Hitler mustache. In an October speech to the Ron Paul Institute, Kennedy likened the antivaccine cause to a “second American Revolution,” the Associated Press reported.
Crucial Quote
“Making reckless comparisons to the Holocaust, the murder of 6 million Jews, for a political agenda is outrageous and deeply offensive,” the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum said in a tweet. “Those who carelessly invoke Anne Frank, the star badge and the Nuremberg Trials exploit history and the consequences of hate.”
Contra
Kennedy’s apology was highly qualified and did not disavow comparisons of Covid-19 mandates to the Holocaust. Kennedy said he expressed sorrow “to the extent that [his] remarks caused hurt.”
Further Reading
“Robert F Kennedy Jr apologizes for Anne Frank comparison in anti-vax speech” (Guardian)
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