In recent times, a worrying phenomenon for those who are engaged in the fight against antisemitism and the memory of Shoah is becoming intensely rampant. I refer to the banalisation of Nazism, which is becoming extremely offensive for the victims of Shoah and is insulting to intelligence and to respect for human rights. This phenomenon is occurring in Europe and all over the world, showing rapid and global growth.

Today, anyone disagreeing with an idea will label his ideological opponent a “Nazi”. It is vital to highlight that the acts committed by the Nazis were so overwhelmingly horrendous that there is nothing to compare with them. Indeed, to do so is to minimise and banalise what the Nazis really did, which was the planned and industrialised mass murder of millions of people, with unparalleled sadism and wickedness.

It is outrageous to see how all are insulted and attacked from every direction, calling people Nazis and comparing Nazism to just about anything. It is astounding to see how antivaccine movements around the world charge health policies that recommend and demand vaccination with being Nazi policies. They even call the law on vaccination of the population as the Auschwitz Law or how antivaxxers wear yellow stars of David, as the Jews were made to do during the Nazi era.

Personally, I do not discuss whether or not the vaccine is good and whether or not it is ethical to demand that the population be vaccinated. What I do know is that none of this can in any way be compared to Nazi laws. What is even more shocking is that on the other side there have been politicians who accused those same antivaxxers of being Nazis because of their inflexible ideas.

We have very deplorable examples in this regard, here in  Catalonia. The constitutionalist politicians are constantly saying that the independents demonstrate Nazi attitudes and label everyone who is not a separatist as a Nazi. It is absurd and should be stopped immediately.

I would like to underline the recent legal resolution in the Netherlands which convicted an extreme-right leader and the leaders of the antivaccine movement for comparing Nazism to the health policies involving the Covid passport. That is the road to follow.

So, I exhort the political and judicial authorities of all democratic countries to make laws and judicial decisions that will help stop this dangerous and offensive phenomenon that banalises the Holocaust and might even be considered a denial of humanity’s greatest tragedy. To minimise the seriousness of what happened in the Holocaust or compare it to anything at all is a form of denial.