Invoking the Holocaust in Fight for Animals

Most animal rights organizations and activists refrain from comparing animal atrocities to the Holocaust because the analogy alienates people, which could compromise its intent to effect positive change for the animals.

Over the years, PETA has been attacked in the press and online for producing Holocaust imagery that compares concentration camps to factory farms.

PETA’s Holocaust Campaign

In mid-September, Australian artist Jo Frederiks produced an exhibit with Holocaust imagery called The Animal Holocaust, which, she said, was inspired by quotations from concentration camp survivors and philosophers, such as Theodor Adorno who wrote “Auschwitz begins whenever someone looks at a slaughterhouse and thinks: they are only animals.” Like PETA, Ms. Frederiks was criticized.

But what happens when a survivor invokes the Holocaust to generate attention for the billions of farm animals who are slaughtered each year? Is he above reproach?

Before being smuggled out of the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II, five year old Alex Hershaft saw Jews being beaten by Nazis in the streets. He lost most of his family during the war, but he gained empathy that helped him connect dots between the atrocities committed against humans and animals – and become one of the founders of the modern-day animal rights movement.

Holocaust Survivor Alex Hershaft

In 1976, Dr. Hershaft founded the organization that would eventually become the Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM). In 1983, began an annual one-day fast on October 2nd as part of World Day for Farmed Animals. The fast aims to raise awareness of the plight of who are raised and killed for food. This year, about 10,000 people from 71 countries have pledged to join him.

Author Isaac Besheva Singer once said, “In their behavior toward creatures, all men are Nazis.” The cows who are branded with fire and baby pigs who are castrated with no painkillers would assuredly agree.

The animals’ perspective