Rep. George Santos (R-NY) walks through the House Chamber Jan. 5, 2023. Photo by Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

By Beth Harpaz January 28, 2023

U.S. Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., who fabricated claims that his grandparents were Holocaust survivors and reportedly made Hitler jokes on social media, gave a speech in Congress Friday marking Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Noting that “the 27th of January marks the anniversary of  the Auschwitz concentration camp being liberated,” Santos said: “We must honor the victims and survivors. We must also pay tribute to the liberators who rescued millions of people.”

In fact, only about 7,000 people remained in Auschwitz when it was liberated by the Soviet army in 1945, and experts estimate that only several hundred thousand Jews were alive in Europe when the war ended.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

In a floor speech minutes ago, Rep. George Santos spoke to recognize Holocaust Remembrance Day, including paying tribute to the purportedly Auschwitz-surviving grandmother of a staffer. Not mentioned: his own claims to be Jewish and that his grandparents are Holocaust refugees.

— Marc Rod (@marcrod97) January 27, 2023

Santos made the remarks about Holocaust Remembrance Day a day after Patch reported that his now-deleted social media posts included a shared photo of someone making a military salute with the caption “something like Hitler” and Santos’ comment: “hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh hiiiiiiiiiiiitlerrrrrrrrrrr (hight hitler) lolololololololololololol sombody kill her!! the jews and black mostly lolllolol!!! Dum.”

In his remarks in Congress, Santos said that “antisemitism is a plague in this nation. It is undoubtedly up to us to be sure this kind of tragedy is never to be seen again.” He called his remarks “a tribute to aging survivors.”

His comments Friday made no reference to the false claims he made during his campaign that his grandparents had moved from Belgium to Brazil to flee the Nazis. In fact, Santos’ grandparents were born in Brazil before the Nazis came to power and his family is Catholic. He also made no reference Friday to his repeated false claims of Jewish heritage, which he later modified, saying he was Catholic and “Jew-ish.”

Santos did, however, in his remarks on the House floor, refer to the grandmother of an unnamed member of his staff, stating that she was a 93-year-old survivor of Auschwitz.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount