Two Jewish organizations turned to the court in Amsterdam, demanding the removal of the posts, which they described as “seriously offensive and unnecessarily hurt murdered victims, Holocaust survivors and relatives.”
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Among the tweets was one post in which Baudet claimed that “unvaccinated are the new Jews and those who look away from exclusion are the new Nazis.” The politician also published a photo of a child who was not allowed to go to St. Nicholas, and next to it a picture of a boy from the Jewish ghetto in Łódži, who was wearing the Star of David before his deportation. Jewish organizations also criticized a film by the Buchenwald concentration camp, which Baudet added: “How is it possible that you still do not see how history repeats itself?”
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“The comparisons you have made in the controversial contributions go beyond what can be justified in the interests of sound public debate,” said the judge hearing the case. “By comparing the situation of unvaccinated citizens with the fate of Jews in the 1930s and 1940s in communications without any nuances, you are making a comparison, as I said, which is factually incorrect. You are misusing, in other words, abusing, the human suffering of Jews in the Holocaust and memories of them, “the judge added.
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The politician called the verdict “crazy and incomprehensible”. “We are angry and fighting. And of course we will appeal,” he wrote on Twitter.
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Baudet is the chairman of the Dutch right-wing populist and Eurosceptic Forum for Democracy (FvD), which has five seats in the lower house of parliament.
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The Jewish groups that initiated the civil proceedings welcomed the verdict, stating that it had “made a significant contribution to defining the boundaries of public debate”.
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