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Jewish community upset after a B.C. anti-vaxxer uses the yellow star used as identifier during the Holocaust on a t-shirt

T-shirt using Holocaust star

A Vancouver woman who is vocally anti-mask and anti-vaccination has created a t-shirt comparing the COVID-19 vaccine rollout to the Holocaust.

Susan Standfield has created a range of t-shirts with messages like “Real men don’t wear masks” and “Immune by nature.”

CTV News reported about her most recent design, which has prompted immediate backlash in the Jewish community, featuring a yellow star with the words “COVID Caust” across it.

The yellow star was used during the Holocaust to identify Jewish people, a mark intended to single them out for segregation and discrimination. The star was placed on clothes, shops and even babies, which also made it easier for the Nazi regime to identify Jews and send them to concentration and death camps.

Standfield stated in a video posted to her Instagram on Saturday morning that she used the design to show she is being persecuted for her views, which are both demonstrably false and dangerous to public health.

“We are the official yellow star class in Canada, so that’s why I made that design,” she said in the video. “People like me that have my values and live my life and say, ‘Well I don’t have to wear a mask and I’m not being vaccinated and I have liberty and democracy,’ we are systematically being targeted.”

Standfield’s Instagram account also showcases her other merchandise and features numerous videos and photos of her taking part in “Freedom Rallies” in the city. The account also criticizes provincial and federal governments for implementing COVID-19 restrictions.

Standfield also believes the COVID-19 vaccine rollout can be linked to the Holocaust in another way, falsely accusing health officials of knowingly giving people injections that are killing them.

“So the first people getting the vax, who are they? Old, disabled and Indigenous. I mean, do the math on that,” she said.

CTV News spoke with Dr. Michael Elterman, who is a member of Vancouver’s Jewish community and the chair of the former Canadian Jewish Congress.

“My first reaction was that it’s irrational, because the whole idea of a vaccine is to save people’s lives and yet this person seems to be associating this logo with the Holocaust, with the genocide of a people,” he said in an interview with CTV News. “It’s irrational, it makes no sense.”

He stated that using the yellow star in this way is offensive.

“They (Standfield) are including probably one of the most horrific pieces of Jewish history,” he said. “It’s a time in our history when we were identified for genocide, it was a hurtful time.”

Michael Mostyn, CEO of B’nai Brith Canada, the country's oldest Jewish human rights organization, also reached out to CTV and issued a forceful condemnation of Standfield's shirts and her expression.

"B'nai Brith condemns, in the strongest terms, this trafficking in Holocaust imagery in order to promote COVID-19 conspiracy theories," Mostyn said in an email. "There can be no comparison between masks and vaccines, which are intended to save lives, and the cruel murder of six million Jews and millions of others by the Nazis and their collaborators."

CTV News reached out to Standfield asking if she thought her shirts were offensive. In an email she responded in part, “my design is an act of solidarity among all persecuted people.”

She later posted a response on Instagram to the media’s request for comment.

"My design is homage to Romanian Jews who were persecuted by Germans in the same way me and all 'unmasked,' 'unvaccinated' people are being treated in BC thanks to Bonnie Henry’s illegal fraudulent orders,” part of her post reads.

While Elterman would like Standfield to remove the shirts, he added: “She has a right to be wrong.”

- With files from CTV News Vancouver



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