The co-founder of Extinction Rebellion (XR), Roger Hallam, ruled Wednesday in an interview that the Holocaust was "just another bullshit in human history", drawing the wrath of the German antenna of the ecologist movement which reproaches him for minimizing the genocide of the Jews.
Genocides? "It's like a regular event"
In a weekly interview with the Die Zeit weekly, the 53-year-old Briton said genocide has been repeated over the last five centuries. "In fact we could say that it's like a regular event," according to excerpts from the interview released Wednesday by the magazine. "The fact is that millions of people have been regularly killed in cruel circumstances throughout history," he said, saying that the Holocaust, in which 6 million Jews were exterminated, was was "just another bullshit in human history".
Anger of the German movement's antenna
Roger Hallam also assured that the culture of repentance, the bedrock of German identity since the end of the Second World War, paralyzed the Germans. "Extreme trauma can create paralysis (which prevents) from learning from it," said the activist. The German branch of Extinction Rebellion promptly denounced Roger Hallam's remarks, which she declared persona non grata in Germany.
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"We are clearly distancing ourselves from the statements of Roger Hallam that minimize and trivialize the Holocaust," she wrote in a message on Twitter. "Roger is flouting the principles of XR that do not tolerate anti-Semitism and are no longer welcome at XR Germany". The co-leader of the German Greens, Robert Habeck, for his part called the organization XR "to distance himself" with Roger Hallam.
"There must be no room for minimizing the Holocaust or anti-Semitism, nowhere and in no movement," he insisted in Bild .
The movement, born in the United Kingdom at the end of 2018, advocates civil disobedience to compel governments to act in the face of the climate crisis. In early October, he had launched a wave of actions in the world: his activists had climbed on planes, had stuck with glue to buildings, while others blocked bridges and pavement.