A Holocaust survivor is demanding that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez be removed from Congress because of her ‘spreading anti-Semitism, hatred, and stupidity’ after she said migrant detention centers were ‘concentration camps.’
Ed Mosberg, 93, of Morris Plains, New Jersey, blasted the Democratic congresswoman representing Queens and the Bronx on Saturday.
‘The people on the border aren’t forced to be there – they go there on their own will,’ he told the New York Post.
‘If someone doesn’t know the difference, either they’re playing stupid or they just don’t care.’
House Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (left) should be removed from Congress because she’s ‘spreading anti-Semitism, hatred, and stupidity,’ according to Holocaust survivor Ed Mosberg (right)
American soldiers liberate the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria in 1945. Mosberg was imprisoned in Mauthausen as well as other Nazi-run prison camps
Mosberg was taken prisoner by the Nazis in the Plaszow and Mauthausen concentration camps during the Holocaust.
His entire family was killed during that period.
Mosberg blasted Ocasio-Cortez on Saturday for comments she made in an Instagram video post on June 18.
‘The United States is running concentration camps on our southern border, and that is exactly what they are – they are concentration camps,’ Ocasio-Cortez said.
In his interview with the Post, Mosberg took umbrage, saying: ‘Her statement is evil. It hurts a lot of people.
‘At the concentration camp, we were not free.
‘We were forced there by the Germans who executed and murdered people – there’s no way you can compare.’
Mosberg is the head of an organization of Holocaust survivors that last week invited Ocasio-Cortez to tour the Auschwitz extermination camp in what was then Nazi-occupied Poland.
Ocasio-Cortez faced immediate backlash after she called the detention camps ‘concentration camps’ in a video chat and on Twitter earlier this month
He expressed disappointment that Ocasio-Cortez rejected the offer.
“She should be taught a lesson,” he said. “If you’re not there, you will never know what happened. She doesn’t want to learn — she’s looking for excuses. I would like to nominate her for the Nobel Prize in stupidity.”
A spokesperson for Ocasio-Cortez told the Post: ‘“She made a distinction between a death camp and concentration camp.
‘She’s been pretty outspoken about the issue.’
From the Depths posted an open letter on its Facebook page on June 21, inviting Ocasio-Cortez to go on an educational tour of the Nazi-run camps this summer, which would be led by Mosberg.
‘I can show her where they killed my mother, my grandparents and cousins so she understands this,’ he said.
‘I will bring her to the place where they give my wife’s mother [benzine] injections to the heart and put her on the fire.’
The ‘educational tour’ was ‘specifically built for legislators’ and would include visits to Mauthausen, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek concentration camps, among other historic sites.
From the Depths, a millennial-run group, posted this open letter invitation on Facebook Friday
They invited Ocasio-Cortez on the tour, led by Holocaust survivor Edward Mosberg (pictured)
The tour would include visits to Mauthausen, Auschwitz-Birkenau (pictured) and Majdanek concentration camps, among others
From the Depths wrote that ‘over 100 international parliamentarians from across the political spectrum’ have gone on the tour thus far, including more than 20 members of Congress from both the GOP and Democrat parties.
After House Rep. Steve King, a Republican from Iowa, urged Ocasio-Cortez to accept the invite, the New York Democrat refused.
‘@AOC I went to Auschwitz & Birkenau with Eddie Mausberg [sic] & Jonny Daniels with In the Depths,’ King wrote in a tweet last Saturday.
‘I went with a deep understanding of the Shoah and had a profound personal experience.
‘Please accept their offer.’
To which Ocasio-Cortez replied: ‘The last time you went on this trip it was reported that you also met w/ fringe Austrian neo-Nazi groups to talk shop.
‘I’m going to have to decline your invite.
‘But thank you for revealing to all how transparently the far-right manipulates these moments for political gain.’
In October 2018, it was reported that King traveled to Austria and met with members of the Austrian Freedom Party, a political movement founded by a former Nazi SS officer.
Twitter spat: Liz Cheney, the third most senior Republican in the House, repeatedly criticized Ocasio-Cortez for the use of the term ‘concentration camp’
Tweets in which Republicans decried Ocasio-Cortez likening Trump’s migrant detention camps with concentration camps and her refusal to back down from using the term
King, however, said that Freedom Party members are currently in Austria’s government and that they ‘completely reject any kind of Nazi ideology or philosophy.’
King has in the past been accused of making racist statements.
In an interview with The New York Times, King said: ‘White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?’
Those remarks led Republican members of Congress to remove King from his committee seats in the House of Representatives.
Republicans have denounced Ocasio-Cortez for her ‘concentration camp’ comments.
‘Please @AOC do us all a favor and spend just a few minutes learning some actual history,’ tweeted Republican Liz Cheney, the party’s third most senior member of the House. ‘6 million Jews were exterminated in the Holocaust. You demean their memory and disgrace yourself with comments like this.’
‘People like @AOC — who are not lifting a finger to solve the problem — comparing the men and women serving our country to concentration camp guards do the Congress and country a great disservice,’ Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham tweeted.
Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House minority leader, told reporters that Ocasio-Cortez should apologize ‘not only to the nation but to the world’ for what she tweeted.
‘She does not understand what is going on at the border at the same time. There is no comparison. To actually say that is embarrassing,’ McCarthy said.
Children and workers are seen at a tent encampment recently built near the Tornillo Port of Entry on June 19, 2018 in Tornillo, Texas
‘To take somewhere in history where millions of Jews died, and equate that to somewhere that’s happening on the border, she owes this nation an apology.’
Despite the backlash, Ocasio-Cortez defended her word choice.
Reacting to his demand, she tweeted Wednesday: ‘DHS ripped 1000s of children from their parents & put them in cages w inhumane conditions.
‘They call their cells “dog pounds” & “freezers.” I will never apologize for calling these camps what they are. If that makes you uncomfortable, fight the camps – not the nomenclature.’
She went on to defend herself by arguing concentration camps were different from Nazi death camps or extermination camps, where more than 3million were estimated to have been killed during World War II.
‘And for the shrieking Republicans who don’t know the difference: And that’s exactly what this administration is doing,’ she wrote on Twitter.
‘Concentration camps are considered by experts as “the mass detention of civilians without trial.” And that’s exactly what this administration is doing.’
She also tweeted that ‘The US ran concentration camps before, when we rounded up Japanese people during WWII. It is such a shameful history that we largely ignore it. These camps occur throughout history. Many refuse to learn from that shame, but here we are today. We have an obligation to end them.’