From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, January 25, 2022
RFK Jr. apologizes after condemnation for Anne Frank comparison
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US anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. apologizes for suggesting things are worse for people today than they were for Anne Frank, the teenager who died in a Nazi concentration camp after hiding with her family in a secret annex in an Amsterdam house for two years.
Kennedy’s comments, made at a Washington rally on Sunday put on by his anti-vaccine nonprofit group, were widely condemned as offensive, outrageous and historically ignorant. It’s the second time since 2015 that Kennedy has apologized for referencing the Holocaust during his work sowing doubt and distrust about vaccines.
“I apologize for my reference to Anne Frank, especially to families that suffered the Holocaust horrors,” Kennedy says in a tweet. “My intention was to use examples of past barbarism to show the perils from new technologies of control. To the extent my remarks caused hurt, I am truly and deeply sorry.”
Kennedy’s wife, the actress Cheryl Hines of HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, distances herself from her husband in her own tweet about 20 minutes later. She calls the reference to Anne Frank “reprehensible and insensitive.”
“The atrocities that millions endured during the Holocaust should never be compared to anyone or anything. His opinions are not a reflection of my own,” Hines tweets.
The Times of Israel Community.