A line of people dressed up in white and gray bibs, some even with a number. They were held together with a rope that symbolized a barbed wire. In Novara the latest initiative of the no green pass – a few dozen – saw the demonstrators compare themselves to the deportees of Auschwitz.
Novara was not the first attempt by some members of the movement to compare themselves to the persecuted Jews under Nazi-fascism. In other parts of Italy in the previous weeks some demonstrators had been seen parading sporting a yellow star on their clothes or referring to the persecutions, but the procession in the Piedmontese city on Saturday 30 October sparked a choral and indignant reaction from many sides, involving from ‘Ucei (Union of Italian Jewish Communities) at the Anpi.
Shoah used in a distorted and shameful way
«For months, the no vax movement has continued to use the memory of the Shoah in a distorted and shameful way. The latest alarming case, that of Novara, where the anti-vaccine and Green pass demonstrators raved about being like “the prisoners of Auschwitz”, dressing as such “, declares Rossella Bottini Treves, president of the Jewish Community of Vercelli Rossella Bottini Treves, who management of the Novara section.
The position taken by the Anpi
With a post on Twitter, the national Anpi commented on the photo of the march by writing “the shame of ignorance”.
Green pass not comparable to concentration camps
“It’s crazy that it manifests itself this way. History must be known and facts like that leave me speechless. The effort of our Community goes above all in the direction of knowledge, of knowledge. Obviously, knowledge aimed at everyone, not just the new generation of Jews. It is clear – Bottini Treves points out – that it is a cultural problem, otherwise I do not see how it is possible to conceive things of this kind. A theme like the one on the Green Pass cannot be compared to that of the barbed wire in concentration camps and the Shoah ».