Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Yad Vashem Tweets Link To Ocasio-Cortez To ‘Learn About Concentration Camps’

(JTA) — Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum, had a response to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez referring to migrant detention centers as “concentration camps.”

“The U.S. is running concentration camps on our southern border, and that is exactly what they are,” the freshman New York Democrat had said Monday night in an Instagram Live video. “If that doesn’t bother you … I want to talk to the people that are concerned enough with humanity to say that ‘never again’ means something.”

She tweeted the same message on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, Yad Vashem responded in a tweet that included a link to its web page about Nazi labor and concentration camp.

The congresswoman’s critics, mostly but not exclusively on the right, said Ocasio-Cortez has to know that using the term “concentration camp” invariably invites comparisons to the Nazis. And by doing so, they insist, she not only exaggerates what is happening in the detention facilities but belittles the ways Jews suffered when the Nazis turned their concentration camps into death camps.

A number of Democrats also weighed in on Ocasio-Cortez’s comment. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio called the comparison “wrong,” while Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said “I have not used that word.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, did not seem to mind the comparison.

“Call it a concentration camp or call it something else. What’s happening on our southern border is moral stain on the U.S.,” he wrote on Twitter. 

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.