Comparisons trivialize horrors of Nazis

Recently, AOC compared the detention of illegal immigrants to the treatment of Nazi concentration camp prisoners. I do not believe anybody should trivialize the atrocities the Nazis committed by comparisons to things they do not like about the U.S., no matter how strongly they feel about the political actions. There is no comparison.

Several years ago, Sen. Dick Durbin compared the actions of U.S. soldiers to those of Nazis, Soviets and Pol Pot. This was disgraceful. Now, we have AOC comparing our treatment of people in detention camps to Nazi concentration camps. Let me highlight a few differences:

• The Nazis targeted all European Jews, gypsies and homosexuals for complete extermination due to the Nazi teachings of racial superiority and religion.

• Nazis prohibited Jews from owning businesses, attending schools and working in certain trades. Jews were required to wear yellow stars to identify themselves.

• Nazis gathered Jews from their own homes, murdering many including women and children and sent the survivors on long train trips under inhumane conditions to camps where many were selected for immediate gassing and the remainder were sent to work camps where they received little food or medical care. This was involuntary. The people seeking asylum from Central America and Mexico are doing so voluntarily.

• Most of the world was unaware of what the Nazis were doing in the concentration camps. Most of the world is aware of what is happening in the U.S. detention camps.

The brutality of the Nazis has been mostly unmatched in human history. Perhaps the Pol Pot, the genocides in Armenia and Rwanda, the Soviets and the Chinese exterminations and starvations of millions of civilians came close.

To compare political actions that one does not care for to these is insulting and shows the ignorance of the person who stated it.

Steven J. Weinberg

Mundelein