An Alaska state lawmaker apologized for comparing coronavirus safety measures with European Jews being forced to wear a yellow Star of David during the Holocaust.
Republican state Rep. Ben Carpenter, who made the analogy late last week in response to new measures that require lawmakers to “undergo a health screening,” after which those who pass would be asked to wear a sticker, offered an apology on Sunday after facing criticism from some of his peers, according to the Anchorage Daily News.
“I take my responsibility as the voice of the people who elected me very seriously,” he wrote in an opinion piece published on Sunday in Must Read Alaska. “I also hold the Jewish people in the highest regard. I do not take myself so seriously that I cannot recognize that the words I wrote, and those attributed to me, do not adequately reflect the esteem I hold for either group of people. I hope to correct that error now.”
“In haste, I chose to juxtapose a proposed Alaskan legislative requirement to wear a ‘COVID-19 free sticker’ with the Star of David that the Jews were required by their government to wear during the Holocaust,” he added. “This comparison was not intended to marginalize the memory of the Holocaust but to ensure similar behavior can never happen again. What I couldn’t possibly say in the moment was that the Holocaust didn’t begin with the labeling of undesirables and heinous deprivation of personal liberty. It began with a contagious fear amongst the German people that eventually led to the widespread support of horrifying government overreach.”
The controversy began when Carpenter wrote an email addressed to every member of the Alaska House of Representatives.
“How about an arm band that won’t fall off like a sticker will?” Carpenter wrote. “If my sticker falls off, do I get a new one or do I get public shaming too? Are the stickers available as a yellow Star of David?”
Two Jewish lawmakers quickly rebuked the comparison in emails to the rest of the House.
“Ben, This is disgusting. Keep your Holocaust jokes to yourself,” Democratic state Rep. Grier Hopkins wrote.
Democratic state Rep. Andy Josephson wrote in his email, “I don’t think a tag that we’re cleared to enter the building is akin to being shipped to a concentration camp,” according to the Anchorage Daily News. “It’s more akin to needing a boarding pass when you get through (the Transportation Security Administration.) This is that.”
Carpenter’s comparison with European Jews being forced to wear a Star of David was not the only Nazi reference he made last week regarding the health measures.
“Can you or I — can we even say it is totally out of the realm of possibility that COVID-19 patients will be rounded up and taken somewhere?” he said. “People want to say Hitler was a white supremacist. No. He was fearful of the Jewish nation, and that drove him into some unfathomable atrocities.”
