The AIDS–Holocaust metaphor is used by

AIDS activists Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ma ...

to compare the

AIDS epidemic The global epidemic of HIV/AIDS (human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) began in 1981, and is an ongoing worldwide public health issue. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), as of 2021, HIV/AI ...

to the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

. The comparison was popularized by

Larry Kramer Laurence David Kramer (June 25, 1935May 27, 2020) was an American playwright, author, film producer, public health advocate, and gay rights activist. He began his career rewriting scripts while working for Columbia Pictures, which led him to Lo ...

and

ACT-UP AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) is an international, grassroots political group working to end the AIDS pandemic. The group works to improve the lives of people with AIDS through direct action, medical research, treatment and advocacy, ...

, especially the organization's French chapter, as a way to garner sympathy for AIDS sufferers and spur research into the disease. Although the comparison is now "commonly heard" with regard to AIDS, critics maintain that it is a form of

Holocaust trivialization Holocaust trivialization is any comparison or analogy that diminishes the impact of the Holocaust, the Nazi genocide of six million European Jews during World War II. The Wiesel Commission defined trivialization as the abusive use of comparison ...

Background

Between 1941 and 1945, about six million European Jews were systematically murdered by

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

and its allies as part of a deliberately planned

genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin ...

known as the

. Gay men were also

persecuted Persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another individual or group. The most common forms are religious persecution, racism, and political persecution, though there is naturally some overlap between these terms ...

under Nazi rule, with between 5,000 and 15,000 sent to the concentration camps and forced to wear

pink triangle A pink triangle has been a symbol for the LGBTQ+ community, initially intended as a badge of shame, but later reclaimed as a positive symbol of self-identity and love for queerness. In Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s, it began as one of the Na ...

badges. The

began in 1981 when young, healthy men from the LGBTQ+ community in the United States were diagnosed with

Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia ''Pneumocystis'' pneumonia (PCP), also known as ''Pneumocystis jirovecii'' pneumonia (PJP), is a form of pneumonia that is caused by the yeast-like fungus ''Pneumocystis jirovecii''. ''Pneumocystis'' specimens are commonly found in the lungs of ...

. This turned out to be due to immune deficiency caused by the

HIV virus The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of ''Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the immune ...

. More than 35 million people worldwide have died as a result of HIV infection.

Usage

In 1985, a group of gay men in New York (including

Avram Finkelstein Avram Finkelstein is an American artist, writer, gay rights activist and member of the AIDS art collective Gran Fury. Finkelstein describes himself as a "red diaper baby", raised by leftist parents who encouraged him to develop an interest in rad ...

) founded the

Silence=Death Project The Silence=Death Project, best known for its iconic political poster, was the work of a six-person collective in New York City: Avram Finkelstein, Brian Howard, Oliver Johnston, Charles Kreloff, Chris Lione, and Jorge Soccarás. Formation A ...

to raise awareness about AIDS. According to Finkelstein, the group was about half Jewish. Finkelstein and others designed the well known poster at right after being horrified by

William F. Buckley Jr. William Frank Buckley Jr. (born William Francis Buckley; November 24, 1925 – February 27, 2008) was an American public intellectual, conservative author and political commentator. In 1955, he founded ''National Review'', the magazine that stim ...

's call for HIV positive individuals to be tattooed. (Following criticism, Buckley admitted that his proposal "reminded everyone of Auschwitz".)

is an American playwright and AIDS activist who frequently invoked the AIDS-as-Holocaust trope. Kramer considered the lack of press coverage in American newspapers of the AIDS epidemic to be similar to its tepid response to the Holocaust. He also criticized some LGBT organizations, such as

Gay Men's Health Crisis The GMHC (formerly Gay Men's Health Crisis) is a New York City–based non-profit, volunteer-supported and community-based AIDS service organization whose mission statement is to "end the AIDS epidemic and uplift the lives of all affected." Hist ...

, for not being militant enough in the struggle against the AIDS epidemic; in Kramer's opinion, this was comparable to the reaction of the , 'Jewish councils' set up by the Nazis, to the murder of their communities. Kramer believed that the slow pace of AIDS research was due to prejudice against the LGBTQ+ community and constituted genocide by neglect. Officials in the administration of Ronald Reagan were "equal to Hitler and his Nazi doctors performing their murderous experiments in the camps—not because of similar intentions, but because of similar results", and

Anthony Fauci Anthony Stephen Fauci (; born December 24, 1940) is an American physician-scientist and immunologist serving as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the chief medical advisor to the president. ...

, leader of the

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID, ) is one of the 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). NIAID's ...

, was comparable to Nazi war criminal

Adolf Eichmann Otto Adolf Eichmann ( ,"Eichmann"
''

, to agitate for AIDS sufferers. ACT-UP was known for its combative rhetoric and use of the slogan "Silence=Death" and the pink triangle. The AIDS-as-Holocaust metaphor was especially common in French AIDS activist groups. ACT UP-Paris was active in drawing parallels between a well known example of official indifference to mass death in a specific community (the Holocaust) and applied that to the perceived indifference of the government to the AIDS crisis, which affected marginalized groups. French photographer

Hervé Guibert Hervé Guibert (14 December 1955 – 27 December 1991) was a French writer and photographer. The author of numerous novels and autobiographical studies, he played a considerable role in changing French public attitudes to HIV/AIDS. He was a ...

, who died of AIDS, was known for having compared his body to that of prisoners at

Auschwitz concentration camp Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

. proposed that AIDS was a turning point in

LGBT history LGBT history dates back to the first recorded instances of same-sex love and sexuality of ancient civilizations, involving the history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) peoples and cultures around the world. What survives af ...

, similar to what the Holocaust had been for the Jews. In 1997, Steven Epstein argued that the comparison of AIDS and genocide was growing less commonplace as activist groups accommodated themselves with the medical establishment.

Reception

According to David Caron, the comparison of AIDS and the Holocaust has inspired more anger than other comparisons relating to genocides. Arlene Stein writes that the AIDS–Holocaust metaphor is part of a discourse in which the "Holocaust has become a universal symbol of injustice".

Susan Sontag Susan Sontag (; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, philosopher, and political activist. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on 'Camp'", in 1964. Her ...

was critical of the metaphor, telling a reporter that "The Holocaust was inflicted by human beings on human beings. It's wrong to compare a situation in which there was real culpability to one in which there is none... The word olocaustshould not be used metaphorically". According to '' Vanity Fair'' in 2013, it is a "commonly heard metaphor about AIDS". However, research by Andrea Kalmin and Katherine Bischoping in 1999 indicated that most Americans did not make comparisons between the Holocaust and the victimization of

sexual minorities A sexual minority is a group whose sexual identity, sexual orientation, orientation or practices differ from the majority of the surrounding society. Primarily used to refer to lesbian, gay, bisexual, or non-heterosexual individuals, it can als ...

. Caron maintains that the AIDS–Holocaust metaphor is a form of

References

Citations Sources * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:AIDS-Holocaust metaphor HIV/AIDS activism The Holocaust in popular culture Metaphors referring to war and violence Nazi analogies

Background

Usage

Reception

See also

References