AOC Declines Invitation To Tour Auschwitz With Holocaust Survivor

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Image by Getty Images

By Marcy Oster June 24, 2019

(JTA) — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., declined the invitation of a Poland-born Holocaust survivor from New Jersey to tour Auschwitz together following her remarks about concentration camps.

Edward Mosberg, 93, on Friday extended the invitation to the Democratic lawmaker. A week ago, Ocasio-Cortez touched off a heated debate in the media about her use of the term, which is widely associated with Nazi Germany, to describe migrant detention centers in the United States.

Ocasio-Cortez tweeted the rejection of the invitation in response to a tweet from Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, who called on her to visit the Nazi camp with Mosberg and the Holocaust commemoration group he leads, From the Depths. King was removed in January from two House committees after he said he wondered why the term “white supremacist” had become offensive.

“The last time you went on this trip it was reported that you also met w/ fringe Austrian neo-Nazi groups to talk shop. So I’m going to have to decline your invite. But thank you for revealing to all how transparently the far-right manipulates these moments for political gain,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.

Meanwhile, the New York Times over the weekend published a full-page ad which was headlined, “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, stop desecrating the Holocaust.” The ad, sponsored by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach and his The Values Network, features a picture of Jewish concentration camp prisoners and one of the congresswoman, and reads: “Six million Jews were murdered in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. By comparing the United States to the Third Reich, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez disgraces their memory, our country and herself.”

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO