Albanese apologizes for misinterpreting Nazi camp term away from original meaning of Jews

UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese apologized on Monday for claiming that Jews were called 'Muslims' in Nazi camps, a statement she made during an interview. She acknowledged misreading the term 'Muselmann,' which referred to prisoners near death, and clarified that antisemitism was coined specifically to denote hatred of Jews. The apology was issued on X/Twitter, retracting her earlier remarks.

UN Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese issued an apology on X/Twitter on Monday, retracting a statement she made during an interview with the Latin American and Caribbean Confederation of State Workers (CLATE). In her original statement, she claimed that Jews were called 'Muslims' in Nazi concentration camps, as part of a broader argument that antisemitism originally encompassed discrimination against all Semitic peoples. Albanese wrote that she misread the term 'Muselmann,' which was used in Nazi camps for prisoners at the brink of death, and wrongly inferred that antisemitism meant hatred of all Semitic peoples. She clarified that the term was coined specifically to denote hatred of Jews. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance notes that the term antisemitism was coined in 1879 by German journalist Wilhelm Marr and has since its inception referred to prejudice against Jews alone. The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial states that 'Muselmann' referred to prisoners in a state of extreme exhaustion or starvation, not a Nazi racial classification. Yad Vashem released a statement calling her use of the term historically inaccurate, noting that it developed among concentration camp inmates to describe prisoners near death, both Jews and non-Jews.