Albanese apologizes for misinterpreting Nazi camp term away from original meaning of Jews
In her original statement, she said, “In fact, when they were being taken to the gas chambers, there are some accounts of life in the concentration camps saying that Jews were called ‘the Muslims.’”
UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese apologized on X/Twitter for misinterpreting the term "Muselmann" used in Nazi concentration camps. She had claimed that Jews were referred to as Muslims, but this was incorrect. Albanese explained that she misread "Muselmann," which originally meant "Muslim," as evidence that antisemitism originally encompassed discrimination against a broader group of "Semitic peoples."
In reality, "Muselmann" specifically described prisoners nearing death due to starvation and was not a Nazi racial classification. Albanese's apology came after the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) clarified that "Muselmann" referred to prisoners in a state of extreme exhaustion and was not a racial term. Yad Vashem also condemned her misinterpretation, stating that it distorted the historical meaning of the term.
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