London – A vegan activist compared the slaughter of animals to the Holocaust in an interview on TalkTV on Friday.
Tash Peterson, an Australian activist, appeared in an interview with Piers Morgan wearing a t-shirt that showed a caged pig below text that read: “End this Holocaust.”
In response to a question about her history of controversial protests, Ms Peterson said: “I think it brings more attention to the animal Holocaust.”
Mr Morgan then asked: “Why use the word Holocaust? Holocaust is the mass extermination of more than six million Jewish people by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.”
Ms Peterson responded: “Well, that is one Holocaust in history.”
When challenged further and asked, “Why would you use that very emotive language, knowing that it would offend a lot of people?”, the activist doubled down and said: “Well it’s just a factual statement…non-human animals can be subjected to the same atrocities as humans can. In fact, it’s the largest Holocaust in history.”
Comparisons between the animal-slaughter industry and the Holocaust are often seen to minimise the deliberate and industrial genocide of six million innocent Jewish men, women and children.
In an interview on Podcast Against Antisemitism, Ben Rebuck, a Jewish vegan chef and activist, criticised fellow activists who make such comparisons. He commented that “people being killed in gas chambers and firing squads” is “far worse than animals being killed,” adding that the comparisons are “absurd.”