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During the event on Sunday, Jan. 23, Kennedy drew the ire of many when he implied that Anne Frank had more freedom in hiding from the Nazis than people have under the current US vaccine policies.
“What we’re seeing today is what I call turnkey totalitarianism. They are putting in place all of these technological mechanisms for control we’ve never seen before,” Kennedy said. “It’s been the ambition of every totalitarian state since the beginning of mankind to control every aspect of behavior, of conduct, of thought, and to obliterate dissent.”
Kennedy has a lengthy history of speaking out among the anti-vaccine community, while promoting theories that childhood vaccinations are linked to autism and other disorders.
“Even in Hitler Germany, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland. You could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did,” he added during the “Defeat the Mandates” rally, without specifically mentioning the Holocaust directly.
"I visited, in 1962, East Germany with my father and met people who had climbed the wall and escaped, so it was possible. Many died, true, but it was possible.”
Following the fallout of his comment, Kennedy, a former resident of Northern Westchester County, in Bedford, took to Twitter to issue a mea culpa on Tuesday, Jan. 25.
“I apologize for my reference to Anne Frank, especially to families that suffered the Holocaust horrors," he tweeted. "My intention was to use examples of past barbarism to show the perils from new technologies of control. To the extent my remarks caused hurt, I am truly and deeply sorry.”
In a longer statement released by Kennedy to NBC, he noted that he “compared no one to the Nazis or Adolf Hitler."
“I referred to Anne Frank’s terrible two-year ordeal only by way of showing that modern surveillance capacity would make her courageous feat virtually impossible today," he said.
"Characterizing this discussion as 'anti-Semitic' is unfair and cheapens a term that should always retain its terrible power."
Kennedy’s wife, actress Cheryl Hines, sought to distance herself from her husband following his statement.
“My husband's reference to Anne Frank at a mandate rally in D.C. was reprehensible and insensitive," she tweeted on Tuesday. "The atrocities that millions endured during the Holocaust should never be compared to anyone or anything. His opinions are not a reflection of my own.”
On Twitter, sister Kerry Kennedy also denounced his comments, saying that “Bobby’s lies and fear-mongering yesterday were both sickening and destructive.
“I strongly condemn him for his hateful rhetoric," she added, noting his views do not represent their family.”
The Auschwitz Memorial in Germany, which was transformed into a museum dedicated to the Jews killed in concentration camps, also took Kennedy to task.
“Exploiting of the tragedy of people who suffered, were humiliated, tortured & murdered by the totalitarian regime of Nazi Germany — including children like Anne Frank — in a debate about vaccines & limitations during global pandemic is a sad symptom of moral & intellectual decay,” officials there tweeted.
In 2019, Kennedy’s sister, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, his brother, Joseph P. Kennedy II, and his niece, Maeve Kennedy McKean, called him “complicit in sowing distrust of the science behind vaccines” in an essay that was published in Politico.
“These tragic numbers are caused by the growing fear and mistrust of vaccines — amplified by internet doomsayers. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—Joe and Kathleen’s brother and Maeve’s uncle—is part of this campaign to attack the institutions committed to reducing the tragedy of preventable infectious diseases.
“He has helped to spread dangerous misinformation over social media and is complicit in sowing distrust of the science behind vaccines.”
The family noted that “his and others’ work against vaccines is having heartbreaking consequences.”
“The challenge for public health officials right now is that many people are more afraid of the vaccines than the diseases, because they've been lucky enough to have never seen the diseases and their devastating impact. But that’s not luck; it’s the result of concerted vaccination efforts over many years.”
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