Swiss Lawmaker Compares Pigs To Auschwitz Victims
Image by getty images
(JTA) — A Swiss lawmaker has resigned after comparing the transportation of pigs for farming to the transportation of prisoners to Auschwitz.
“The (Nazi) deportees had only a slight chance to survive. As for the pigs, they are condemned to certain death,” Swiss Green Party lawmaker Jonas Fricker said on Thursday during debate in the National Council, the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Switzerland.
During the debate Fricker, 40, apologized to the parliament and the Jewish community for his “naïve” comparison.
Swiss media was blanketed with coverage of Fricker’s comparison between pigs and Jews during the Holocaust, the Jerusalem Post reported.
On Saturday night, Fricker submitted a letter of resignation to his party.
“This comparison was hurtful and unfortunate. Resigning my mandate to parliament is the strongest signal that I can send,” Fricker wrote, the news website Swissinfo reported. He also wrote that he considers the Holocaust to be a “crime without comparison.”
A message from our editor-in-chief Jodi Rudoren
We're building on 127 years of independent journalism to help you develop deeper connections to what it means to be Jewish today.
With so much at stake for the Jewish people right now — war, rising antisemitism, a high-stakes U.S. presidential election — American Jews depend on the Forward's perspective, integrity and courage.
— Jodi Rudoren, Editor-in-Chief
