In recent months, some anti-vaxxers have appropriated the yellow Star of David badge, which European Jews were required to wear during the Holocaust, to symbolize their “persecution” at the hands of government vaccine rules.

The stars, emblazoned with the stylized words “No Vax,” are showing up on social media, especially on Facebook, and at anti-vaccine events. According to a statement by the ADL “This is a hugely inappropriate use of this enduring symbol of the persecution of Jews by the Nazis during World War II and minimizes and trivializes the experiences of the survivors and victims of the Holocaust.”

“The Holocaust was a unique event in human history. European Jews were forced to wear yellow Stars of David by the Nazis as a kind of scarlet letter, a form of persecution and forced exclusion from society,” Jonathan A. Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, told the Washington Post. “It is simply wrong to compare the plight of Jews during the Holocaust to that of anti-vaxxers. Groups advancing a political or social agenda should be able to assert their ideas without trivializing the memory of the six million Jews slaughtered in the Holocaust.”

In Austin, Del Bigtree, chief executive of an anti-vaccination group called ICAN, wore a yellow star during a rally last Thursday to identify with parents who decline to vaccinate their children. A spokesman for Bigtree said he took the action “to let the Jewish community of Rockland County know he stands with them.”

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After photos of Bigtree were posted on Twitter, the official account of the Auschwitz Memorial and Museum in Poland tweeted in response: “Instrumentalizing the fate of Jews who were persecuted by hateful anti-Semitic ideology and murdered in extermination camps like #Auschwitz with poisonous gas in order to argue against vaccination that saves human lives is a symptom of intellectual and moral degeneration.”

In Arizona and New York, new vaccine rules have been met with protests, some of which lean heavily on Holocaust analogies. On Facebook, the Star of David imagery is commonly used by anti-vaxxers, who also draw comparisons between vaccine rules and state-sponsored genocide. Facebook recently announced they will no longer support or promote anti-vaccination “news” stories or ads; the crackdown will be carried out in partnership with the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The anti-vaccine crowd has evidently decided their persecution can only be expressed in Holocaust metaphors. At a rally in Texas yesterday anti-vax media personality Del Bigtree pinned a yellow star on himself mid-speech. pic.twitter.com/m672NNiEzY

— Anna Merlan (@annamerlan) March 29, 2019

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