Statement on Rep. Fillmore’s Remarks Comparing Mask Mandates to the Holocaust

Contact: Emily Kirkland, emily@progressarizona.org

Phoenix – At a rally today in Phoenix, State Representative John Fillmore, LD-16, said that requiring masks as a public health measure was “reminiscent” of “1930s Germany, when people on their own bodies were tattooed.”

The remarks appear to be a reference to the tattooing of Holocaust victims at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland beginning in 1941. 

“Comparing the need to wear masks to prevent a disease to genocide is so obscene and appalling that it’s hard to know where to start. Unfortunately, this is exactly the level of callousness, ignorance of history and utter insensitivity that we’ve come to expect from Republican state legislators. It’s past time to change who’s in charge at the state capitol. Anyone who could make this kind of comparison should not be responsible for helping to run our state,” said Emily Kirkland, Executive Director of Progress Arizona.