The Protocols of the Vaccines

As you may have noticed, demonstrations against covid-related issues are quite common in the Czech Republic. It is understandable that after all this time people are frustrated - how could anyone not be? Not being able to do the things you are fond of, having to keep up with all the news, needing to wear a respirator or 2 masks when it can be quite complicated to get them, etc. In addition to this, there is a problem with the monopolization of the vaccine. The concept that some countries might not be able to get the vaccine until 2022 is quite alarming. And when people see members of the government violating some of the restrictions it is obvious that they get angry. But let’s be honest, if someone experiences all of this and then considers the best idea is to attend a protest full of people who are not wearing masks (and if they are then it’s likely only a piece of cloth or paper), they might be lacking some critical thinking skills.

Photo: participant of the demonstration in Prague, author: Petr Topič, MAFRA

About 2 months ago, during one of these protests held to show support for Donald Trump and express opposition to vaccination, some people decided to wear the Star of David with “Unvaccinated” written in the middle, to put the Holocaust and the need for vaccination side by side. Comparing getting vaccinated to a horrendous genocide is just awful and tone-deaf. Sadly, people putting the Holocaust side-by-side with things like lockdown, eating meat, or abortion are not even close to all the antisemitism present in today’s world. 

The thing about antisemitism is that it views Jews as inferior (portraying them as parasites), but also superior at the same time. This might be considered slightly confusing since when talking about oppression, we usually view the oppressed minority as inferior, which might make it easier for people to feel empathy. Due to this, non-Jews might have tendencies to make themselves the victims in this situation. Think about all the conspiracy theories involving “reptilians”, aka power-hungry people, who control the world. Sometimes people put it even more plainly - for example, Jews controlling Hollywood, the media, or (you may have guessed it), banks. Sounds familiar? A lot of these ideas come from The Protocol of the Elders of Zion, published in 1903, which was later used by the Nazis to spread propaganda, sometimes even introducing this to children in schools to indoctrinate them. 

Or what about all of the villains in children’s stories, who have stereotypically-big noses and whose characters are based on wanting money, power, or eating children? Especially the latter should be a red flag, considering it comes from yet another antisemitic rumour - blood libel, which accuses Jews of murdering children. Consider characters like Gargamel from the Smurfs or Dame (Mother) Gothel from Rapunzel. It is scary to realize how deeply rooted antisemitism is in our culture, even though we might not realize it. All of these things should be very alarming to us if we do not want to repeat the mistakes of history.

Written by Malgorzata

SOURCES

“Holocaust Encyclopedia | United States Holocaust Memorial Museum”

iDNES.cz, “Davidova hvězda jako symbol neočkovaných. Zneužití, tvrdí federace” 

https://www.idnes.cz/zpravy/domaci/zide-davidova-hvezda-zneuziti-symbolu-demonstrace-ockovani.A210110_163727_domaci_misl