"Misusing" the Holocaust

Today, 27 January, is International Holocaust Rememberance Day. All too sadly the word "holocaust", and imagery from it, is bandied about far too often - something the writer of this op-ed piece "The Holocaust is not your metaphor to use in modern political debates" in The Guardian addresses.

"Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, commemorated annually on 27 January on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Designated by the UN General Assembly, the day honours the victims of the Nazi era.

In thinking about what it actually means to honour the victims, I’ve come to the conclusion that one of the best ways to do this is to continue reminding ourselves that those victims were individual human beings. This should seem obvious, right? And yet, the victims of the Holocaust continue to be appropriated as political metaphors and dehumanised in the process.

Specific examples can be both well-meaning or purposefully disrespectful. Take the animal rights group PETA, which is known for its insensitive shock tactics when it comes to its marketing. In 2004, the group created the Holocaust on your plate campaign, using images of emaciated victims of Nazi concentration camps and comparing meat-eaters and those working in the meat-production industry to Nazis. I hope I don’t need to explain why this is wrong. But as I’ve been watching Facebook and Twitter conversations about the Tony Abbott government’s treatment of refugees degenerate into comparisons with the Nazis, I have to wonder if perhaps I do."

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