Liberal candidate for Warringah Katherine Deves to visit Sydney Jewish Museum
Embattled Liberal candidate Katherine Deves is set to visit the Sydney Jewish Museum, as a new tweet exposes her exploiting the death of Anne Frank.
Liberal candidate Katherine Deves has agreed to visit the Sydney Jewish Museum as new tweets emerge of her discussing Jewish schoolgirl Anne Frank who died in a Nazi concentration camp in 1945.
As the Jewish community marks Yom Hashoah, the a day set aside for Jews to remember the Holocaust, new tweets has emerged from Ms Deves’ deleted account comparing the fight against transgender activism with the Nazi resistance.
News.com.au has now obtained a searchable download covering the entire tranche of Ms Deves 6,000 deleted tweets.
On Wednesday night, a search of this new data uncovered the new reference to Nazi Germany one of multiple references on her deleted account.
Ms Deves responds to an image of Anne Frank, the Dutch schoolgirl who hid from the Nazis during the second world war.
Another woman tweeted the image that is an internet meme of Anne Frank stating “the law is not a moral compass” because during the war “the people hiding Anne Frank were breaking the law” and “the people who killed Anne were following the law”.
The tweet was in relation to psychologists treating trans teenagers and Australian psychologists’ ethics rules.
In response, Ms Deves replies “following Third Reich law is not lawful as determined by the Nuremberg trials.”
“Relying on the excuse just following the law or “just doing my job” does not hold when laws clearly contravene fundamental human rights principles – such as the right not to be harmed,’’ she wrote.
Ms Deves has now confirmed after negotiations she has agreed to visit the Sydney Jewish Museum at their request following anger about her tweets.
“Thank you for the important work you do in the community and I appreciate your kind offer to visit the Sydney Jewish Museum, to learn more about the tragedy of Holocaust and its aftermath,’’ she wrote.
“Please let me know when might be an opportune time to organise this visit, and my campaign will help to organise it.”
“Kind regards, Katherine Deves Liberal candidate for Warringah.”
NSW Jewish Board of Deputies CEO Darren Bark and Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-CEO Peter Wertheim said, “We are pleased Ms Deves listened to our concerns and has agreed to visit the Sydney Jewish Museum to learn more about the uniquely abhorrent actions of the Nazis during World War II.
“As part of the visit, Ms Deves will meet with a Holocaust survivor to hear an eyewitness account about the horrors they endured,’’ the group said in a statement.
“We hope the visit will be a turning point for Ms Deves, that she will realise how insensitive and inappropriate her analogies were, and that she refrains from making such hurtful comparisons in the future.”
Ms Deves was on Sunday urged for a second time to take up an offer to visit Sydney’s Jewish Museum as controversy continues to rage over her references to the transgender community and Nazism.
The candidate for Warringah likened her push to stop transgender women from competing in women’s sports to standing up to the Nazis during the Holocaust in an interview in 2021, and has made reference to “the rainbow reich” in since-deleted social media posts.
NSW Jewish Board of Deputies CEO Darren Bark and Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-CEO Peter Wertheim told news.com.au Ms Deves should reflect on her past comments.
“All of these Nazi analogies are historically inaccurate and fundamentally misconceived,” he said.
“Next week the Jewish community will commemorate Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, highlighting the contrast between the free and peaceful life we enjoy in Australia and the life of fear imposed on everybody who lived under the murderous rule of the Nazis.
“If the moral imperative of ‘never again’ is to have genuine meaning, it must begin with a deep understanding of the difference between the blessings of freedom and the horrors of tyranny.”
Ms Deves plagued by controversy after it emerged she described trans teenagers as “surgically mutilated” and said that surrogacy for couples was “a human rights violation.”
“And it might come at a cost to me, but I have to say it.”
In a statement, Ms Deves said she apologised for her comments.
“In my dedication to fighting for the rights of women and girls, my language has on occasion been unacceptable. It has hurt people and detracted from my arguments,” the statement said.
“I apologise for such language and the hurt that I have caused. I commit to continuing the fight for the safety of girls and women in a respectful way.”
Originally published as Liberal candidate for Warringah Katherine Deves to visit Sydney Jewish Museum
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