Across the state, anti-mask protesters have resorted to comparing mask mandates to the Holocaust, in which the Nazi government killed at least 11 million people through a systematic extermination program.
In Springfield, protesters wore yellow stars of David on their chests to a county council meeting; and in a Walmart in that same city a man harassed pharmacist employees, insisting that their distribution of vaccines was equivalent to Nazi war crimes.
The same rhetoric was used in the St. Louis County Council the evening of Aug. 10, as residents suggested that COVID-19 was not real and health measures taken to prevent its spread were similar to Nazi policies of genocide.
When Jewish St. Louis leaders came together to respond, their message was clear.
“We are not tools of rhetoric to make a political point,” said Jewish Community Relations Council Executive Director Rori Picker-Neiss at a press conference organized by County Executive Sam Page Monday morning.
Picker-Neiss was one of three Jewish community leaders at the conference, convened in response to a series of comments equating mask mandates to the Holocaust by members of the public at last week’s County Council meeting.
The group of Jewish leaders called on Chairwoman Rita Days to “use her gavel” to shut down hate speech in county council meetings. Those comments came on the heels of another highly publicized, racially-charged incident at a county council meeting two weeks prior, Dr. Faisal Khan, the county’s acting health director, was verbally attacked and called slurs by anti-vaccination protesters two weeks prior, as Days admonished Khan at least twice when he asked her to restore order rather than admonishing others.
Stacey Newman, executive director of ProgressWomen, also spoke at the press conference, requesting an apology letter from Days.
“We insist that the St Louis [County] Council, along with chair Rita Days, apologize to the Jewish community, and demand that you all refuse to allow any further hate speech in public commentary,” Newman said.
She said that comparisons of mask mandates to Naziism were made at least three times during the public commentary portion of last week’s meeting.
“I was appalled because none of the hate speech was gaveled down during Tuesday night’s meeting,” Newman added. “Nothing was done to cut off the antisemitic or even say it was out of order.” – Stacey Newman
“I was appalled because none of the hate speech was gaveled down during Tuesday night’s meeting,” Newman added. “Nothing was done to cut off the antisemitic or even say it was out of order.”
During the meeting on Aug. 10, one resident alluded to the Nazi propoganda theory that Jews were undermining Germany via a “big lie,” and said that COVID-19 was a lie in that same vein rather than a virus that has killed over 4.4 million people worldwide.
“What did the Nazis say? They said the bigger the lie the more we’ll believe it,” he said.
Another asserted that Khan’s experience of racism at the county council meeting never happened, and that St. Louis County Executive Sam Page’s investigation of that incident would turn up fruitless.
Two other speakers falsely asserted that the vaccines were violations of the Nuremberg Code, a research ethics doctrine instituted in 1947 to regulate medical experimentation in response to Nazi experiments on their Jewish prisoners. However, according to Reuters fact-checkers, the vaccines are not experimental drugs and so they are not in violation of the Nuremberg Code.
Several times, Days allowed speakers to continue past their allotted three-minute time, before being reminded to cut them off and allow the next speaker to come forward.
At Tuesday’s meeting, a week after these incidents, Days stated that she does not condone the use of offensive language.
“It was said that I allowed antisemitic rhetoric without gaveling down or commenting on the actions of certain citizens,” Days stated. “This is a public forum. However, under no circumstances do I tolerate or condone that type of behavior. I might not agree with what you say, but it is your right to say it.”
However, she also noted that she did not believe that any biased language had been used in the meeting in the first place, and stated that she had received messages from three Jewish people in the audience “saying they heard nothing offensive” and that they did not believe any of the comments to be out of order.
No mask mandate is currently in effect in St. Louis County, after four consecutive meetings drew large crowds opposed to mask mandates. A mandate was in effect for under two days, then overturned. The City of St. Louis, however, is under an ongoing mask mandate. There are currently over 500 COVID patients experiencing serious illness in area hospitals, 84% of whom are unvaccinated.
