An Italian politician who opposes vaccines has caused a stir in recent days in Italy, when a Jewish senator, a Holocaust survivor, has been publicly ridiculed. Fabio Maroni, from the right-wing party “Lega” posted a Facebook post in which he came out against Liliana Sagra’s pleas to the public to get vaccinated, and wrote “this is what we were missing, number 75190”. The narrator is the one who was tattooed by the Germans by Sagra in Auschwitz when she arrived at the camp at the age of 13.
Sagra, who was born in 1930, was the only member of her family to survive. In recent decades she has spoken extensively to the public, including university students, about her experiences in World War II. She was appointed “senator for life” about three years ago, in part because of her public activities. She recently called on the public to get vaccinated against Corona, in what she defined as the “moral duty” of every resident of Italy.
In response, Maroni, a senior right-wing party opposed to immigration from the Lissona area of Lombardy, who previously served as mayor, posted a Facebook post in which he reiterated his opposition to vaccines. In the end, he referred to the Holocaust survivor without her name, only with the number tattooed on her truth by the Nazis. Opponents of vaccines sometimes compare the persecution and extermination of the Jews in World War II to the so-called “persecution” of them because of their resistance to getting vaccinated.
After the scandal that erupted following the publication, Maroni repeated it, writing that “in an atmosphere of incitement and hatred, unfortunately, I was swept away. I want to apologize to the closed senator. I did not want to hurt her in any way.”