Holocaust Distortion: Protesters Don Yellow Stars, Dress in Concentration Camp Costumes at Kiev Protest Against COVID-19 Restrictions

At a rally in Ukraine’s capital city of Kiev against COVID-19 restrictions, several rally-goers dressed as Jewish concentration camp prisoners while comparing government-imposed health guidelines during the ongoing pandemic to the treatment of Jews during the Nazi-perpetrated Holocaust.

Some of the participants in the event donned costumes of Nazi concentration camp prisoners with six-pointed yellow stars – similar to the yellow Stars of David that the Nazis forced Jews to wear in jurisdictions under their control during the Holocaust.

Eduard Dolinsky, Director General of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, called the actions “a cynical and shameful desecration of the victims of the Holocaust,” in a Facebook post about the incident.

The so-called Rally For Freedom was organized by a group called Stop Fake Pandemic, on March 20, 2021. According to a rally organizer, more than 1,000 people took part in the demonstration.

Holocaust comparisons have become regular features at anti-lockdown protests around the world including in Germany and the United Kingdom.

In November of last year, Germany’s Anti-Semitism Commissioner Felix Klein warned that anti-Semitism has increased during the coronavirus pandemic saying, “Portraying oneself as the persecuted victim is and was a central element of anti-Semitic attitudes.”

The rise of Holocaust distortion and revisionism has emerged as a new anti-Semitic trend during the course of the pandemic. At the CAM Annual Summit last February, the chairwoman of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Ambassador Michaela Küchler acknowledged this new trend by saying, “Over this past year we have witnessed important developments in how anti-Semitism manifests itself and in the fight against it we saw how Holocaust distortion became a common feature. At protests against coronavirus measures, people would compare their experience under lockdown to that of [Holocaust victims].”