Ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) released a comprehensive internet monitoring data report revealing the scope of the rising trend of Holocaust trivialization – including comparisons of the Nazi genocide to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The study, conducted by Buzzilla, an online and social media monitoring agency, scanned online content over a two-year period (January 2020-December 2021) from social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, as well as other news websites, forums and blogs, and user comments on media portals, in six languages, including English, Spanish, French, Italian, Arabic and Hebrew.
A full summary of the report is available for downloading here.
A database of Holocaust trivialization incidents since the summer of 2021 monitored by CAM can be viewed here.
By isolating specific word combinations, the scanning identified more than 60 million online engagements (posts, comments, reactions, shares) in which the Holocaust and the COVID-19 pandemic were tied together, with a vast majority, nearly 57 million, taking place in English. Hebrew was second place with 2.6 million engagements, and Spanish third with 2.1 million engagements.
The data was compiled as part of CAM’s global campaign against Holocaust trivialization, in partnership with the International March of the Living. The report was released a few days before the United Nations General Assembly is set to vote on a historic resolution against Holocaust denial, formulated by Israel’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Ambassador Gilad Erdan, which will also focus on the need for online and social media companies to curtail distortions of the Holocaust.
Over the last two years, Holocaust trivialization has become increasingly mainstream among many politicians, grassroots movements, in the media, and online, representing a distortion of history and a direct affront to the memory of the victims and the dignity of survivors. Often inflamed by politicians, yellow-star protesters are marching in the streets of their cities and showing up at school board and city council meetings across the world. Some have given Nazi salutes and shouted “Heil Hitler.”
Some of the more high-profile trivializations include politicians from across Europe, the US, and Israel making comparisons between pandemic restrictions and Nazi measures against Jews during the Holocaust; “Not Again” daubed on a Holocaust memorial in Germany together with an anti-vaccine sign; and the slogan, “Vaccination sets you free,” at a demonstration in Poland.
