ZitatRep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) refused Sunday to visit the Auschwitz concentration camp, after a Jewish group had invited her to tour that camp and others this summer to educate herself about the facts of the Holocaust.
Last Monday evening, Ocasio-Cortez compared detention facilities for illegal aliens caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border to “concentration camps,” adding the phrase “never again,” which commonly refers to the Nazi Holocaust.
The remark drew outrage and criticism, even from fellow Democrats. Nevertheless, Ocasio-Cortez doubled down, first claiming that she had not been referring to Nazi Germany, then drawing parallels to the U.S. internment of Japanese-Americans during the Second World War. “I will never apologize for calling these camps what they are,” she tweeted.
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One group, From the Depths, issued an open invitation Friday for Ocasio-Cortez to join it on a tour of Holocaust sites:
We at From The Depths, would like to invite you as our guest during your summer recess from The United Congress, to join us along with Holocaust Survivor, United States Citizen and President of From The Depths, Mr. Edward Mosberg on an educational tour, specifically built for legislators, of the German Nazi Concentration Camps. The educational tour will visit Mauthausen, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek Concentration Camps, amongst many other educational sites.
But Ocasio-Cortez refused the invitation, citing the fact that Rep. Steve King (R-IA) had been on a similar tour:
[Ocasio_Cortez] "The last time you went on this trip it was reported that you also met w/ fringe Austrian neo-Nazi groups to talk shop.
So I’m going to have to decline your invite. But thank you for revealing to all how transparently the far-right manipulates these moments for political gain."