Sir, – Recent voices comparing vaccine passports to the treatment of Jews by the Nazis are as dangerous as they are insulting.
Mattie McGrath TD has released a statement in an attempt to justify his ill-conceived recent remarks which invoke the Holocaust and diminish the suffering of the Jews at the hands of the Nazis and, wittingly or otherwise, question the veracity of the Holocaust itself.
Mr McGrath admits to being no student of history. However, I have no doubt that he knows that Jews who were rounded up and forced to wear a yellow star, including my mother and grandmother, were beaten, tortured, humiliated and gassed, for the sole reason that they were Jewish. They had no choice. They were hunted down across Europe and murdered in their millions.
Mr McGrath says that “sometimes stark language is necessary” to make his point.
I’ll take him at his word: retract your statement and apologise unreservedly. As a TD, your words matter more than most. Can I put it more starkly? – Yours, etc,
OLIVER SEARS,
Holocaust Awareness
Ireland,
Dublin 2.