The Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, a New York City–based human rights organization that claims to have been founded by the World War II diarist’s father in 1959, has tweeted out what amounts to a glaring warning about the “parallels” between President Donald Trump and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
In an image posted to Twitter on Tuesday morning, the center pointed to the “alarming parallels of history escalate” under Trump’s six-month presidency.
The image contained a bulleted list laying out the similarities between the two leaders, among them were “the president creates his own media,” “he endorses police brutality,” and “he demonizes people who believe, look or love differently.”
Alarming parallels of history escalate. pic.twitter.com/5P708XVa5h
— Anne Frank Center (@AnneFrankCenter) August 8, 2017
In a statement to Newsweek, executive director and tweet author Steven Goldstein notes that the Tuesday tweet does not directly compare Hitler to Trump.
Hitler targeted and killed millions of Jewish, disabled and gay people in the 1930s and 1940s. Equating him with Trump “would trivialize the Holocaust,” Goldstein says.
However, he adds, the tweet’s language and message were intentional.
“By the same token, it is responsible, and indeed our moral imperative, to point out parallels between actions taken by the Trump administration today and the actions taken by Germany in the 1930s before the Holocaust,” Goldstein says. “1930s Germany imposed a series of escalating steps of oppression, including demonization, discrimination and isolation of vulnerable communities, that evoke what we are seeing today. That comparison is just, and not to make the comparison would be a dereliction of our duty to ensure ‘never again’ to any people.”