SWC OUTRAGED BY NEW ZEALAND MP'S STATEMENT: “SICK AND TIRED” OF HEARING ABOUT MASS MURDER OF JEWS DURING HOLOCAUST

The Simon Wiesenthal Center today suggested that New Zealand Labor Party MP John Tamihere, who stated that he was “sick and tired of hearing how many Jews got gassed,” seek psychological assistance to enable him to empathize with the victims of the world’s worst case of genocide.

In a statement issued today in Jerusalem by the Center’s Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center said that it found it simply unthinkable that a member of parliament in a democracy like New Zealand could express such crass indifference to the horrendous suffering of millions of innocent civilians murdered just because of their Jewish origin. ”In view of the fact that Mr. Tamihere acknowledges the crimes of the Holocaust, it is particularly disturbing that he finds the dissemination of information regarding these terrible crimes by the institutions like the Wiesenthal Center (which was specifically singled out by the Labor MP for doing so), upsetting to him. Does he think that the world will be a better place and that future genocides will be prevented if the study of the Holocaust will be curtailed to the bare minimum that he can handle?,” said Zuroff.

According to Zuroff, ”It would appear that MP Tamihere is in urgent need of psychological assistance to increase his ability to deal with the sad history and reality of life on the planet Earth during the past century, an absolutely necessary quality for anyone who desires to serve as a public representative. In that respect, “Holocaust fatigue” is simply a new form of mental illness, which is a condition which should disqualify him from public service.”

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