Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Invited By Holocaust Survivor To Tour Auschwitz
The entrance to Auschwitz, in a 2005 image. Image by Getty
(JTA) — A Poland-born Holocaust survivor from New Jersey invited Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to tour Auschwitz following her remarks about concentration camps.
Edward Mosberg, 93, on Friday extended the invitation to the Democrat lawmaker who on Monday touched off a heated debate in the media about her use of the term, which is widely associated with Nazi Germany, to describe facilities where aliens found to be staying illegally in the United States are held.
“It should be a requirement of all United States Congressmen to visit Auschwitz,” wrote Mosberg, honorary president of the Holocaust commemoration group From the Depths.
It is necessary in Ocasio-Cortez’s case because of her “lack of proper education on the Holocaust,” the foundation’s founder, Jonny Daniels, also wrote in the invitation.
Mosberg, a multi-millionaire who had survived several Nazi camps, wore a kippah bearing President Donald Trump’s portrait to a Holocaust commemoration event earlier this year.
Amid criticism by Jewish groups and others over the analogy she made — including by Yad Vashem, Israel’s state Holocaust museum — Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter doubled down on her use of the term.
Her critics, including historian Deborah Lipstadt, argued the analogy is inaccurate and therefore potentially harmful to efforts to reverse the government’s detainment policies.
Many others defended Ocasio-Cortez’s comparison, including George Tekai, an actor who was imprisoned in the United States during World War II because he is of Japanese descent.
“I was inside two of them, in America,” he tweeted. “And yes, we are operating such camps again,” Tekai wrote.
Ocasio-Cortez has faced backlash for her comments from political allies like presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
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