WASHINGTON — An Ohio Congressman’s tweets about D.C.'s vaccine mandate are being called “offensive” and “disgusting” by members of the District’s Jewish community.
On Wednesday, Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, tweeted “This has been done before. #DoNotComply” in reference to another tweet, published by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, detailing the District’s upcoming indoor vaccine mandate. On Saturday, people will have to show their vaccination status, as well as a form of ID, when they enter certain businesses in D.C.
Davidson’s tweet included a picture of a Nazi document with a swastika.
The tweet immediately drew the ire of organizations like the Anti-Defamation League and Auschwitz Memorial. The latter called Davidson’s thinking a “sad symptom of moral and intellectual decay.'
Davidson, two hours later, took to Twitter to try and expound on his initial post.
“Let’s recall that the Nazis dehumanized Jewish people before segregating them, segregated them before imprisoning them, imprisoned them before enslaving them, and enslaved them before massacring them,” he tweeted.
But, Alfred Munzer, a D.C. resident and Holocaust survivor, said the Ohio Congressman’s tweets were still inappropriate.
“It’s totally unbelievable that this continues to happen,” he said. “I would have thought, after the first incident like this, members of Congress would have learned what this means to people who are survivors of the Holocaust.”
Munzer, 81, said he lost his father and two young sisters during the Holocaust. He said while he was placed into the care of a Dutch-Indonesian family in Holland, his sisters Leah, 5, and Eva, 7, ultimately ended up at the Auschwitz concentration camp where they were later killed.
Munzer said the Holocaust should never be used for political purposes unless someone is using its events to prevent future hatred and bigotry.
“It really dishonors the memory of my father, who died in the Holocaust, my two sisters, who were killed in the Holocaust, and millions of other victims,” he said.
Munzer is also a physician. He added he could not understand why any politician would want to sow division in the fight to mitigate COVID’s spread.
“Unfortunately, the debate about health measures, in this case, COVID, has really gone very low and people are making points that are totally inappropriate,” he said.
RELATED: Police investigating desecration of Torah scroll at George Washington University fraternity