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Yad Vashem accuses Albanese of ‘obvious Holocaust revisionism’
Museum condemns UN rapporteur after she admitted getting the history of antisemitism and Nazi camps wrong
Yad Vashem has accused UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, of “obvious and dangerous historical revisionism” after she made false claims about Jews and antisemitism during the Holocaust.
The World Holocaust Remembrance Centre issued a strongly worded response after Albanese claimed Jews in Nazi concentration camps had been called “Muslims” and suggested antisemitism originally referred to hatred of people from the Middle East more broadly.
Albanese has since apologised and admitted she had misunderstood the meaning of the German term “Muselmann”.
Yad Vashem said: “Francesca Albanese ventures into obvious and dangerous historical revisionism with her attempt to recast the Nazi persecution and murder of Jews as merely part of a broader hatred of the ‘non-white’, non-European or ‘non-Christian.’
“Her portrayal of the history of modern antisemitism – and of the term itself is deeply flawed. The term ‘antisemitism’ emerged in the mid-19th century as a term for ‘Jew-hatred’ and referred specifically to hostility toward Jews.”
Albanese made the remarks during an interview with the Latin American and Caribbean Confederation of State Workers while discussing the origins of antisemitism.
“When the term ‘antisemitism’ was first coined, it referred to anyone who wasn’t European and came from the Middle East… in reality, the concept of antisemitism is broader,” she said.
“In fact, when they were taken to the gas chambers, there are some testimonies about life in the concentration camps that mention how Jews were referred to as ‘Muslims’”.
Her comments were challenged by Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, who accused her of “completely rewriting” the meaning of antisemitism and “distorting the history of the Holocaust”.
Neuer said Albanese was wrong on both points: antisemitism was coined to describe hatred of Jews, while “Muselmann” did not mean Jewish prisoners were considered Muslims.
The term was used in Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps to describe prisoners who had become extremely weak through starvation and exhaustion and were close to death. It applied to Jewish and non-Jewish prisoners and was not a Nazi racial classification. Its exact origins remain unclear.
Yad Vashem said: “Her use of the term ‘Muselmann’ is also historically inaccurate. ‘Muselmann’ was not a term specifically for Jews, and it does not prove that Nazi antisemitism connected Jews and Muslims.
“The term developed among the concentration camp inmates, not the Nazis, to describe prisoners, Jews and non-Jews, who were near death and appeared as walking skeletons.
“By misusing this term as evidence of a racial category, Albanese fundamentally distorts its historical meaning. The Nazis targeted and systematically murdered Jews because they were Jewish, as defined through Nazi ideology.”
Albanese later admitted her mistake in a public apology on X.
She wrote: “I sincerely apologise. I misread the term ‘Muselmann’ (Muslim) used in Nazi camps for prisoners at the brink of death, wrongly inferring that the term antisemitism originally meant hatred of all Semitic peoples. In fact, it was coined specifically to denote hatred of Jews.”
Credit: X / Francesca Albanese
The modern term antisemitism is closely associated with German political agitator Wilhelm Marr, who used ‘Antisemitismus’ in 1879 in connection with anti-Jewish campaigns. Although “Semitic” is a linguistic term covering languages including Hebrew and Arabic, antisemitism has historically referred specifically to hostility towards Jews.
Yad Vashem concluded: “The Special Rapporteur would do well to familiarise herself with the history she seeks to address, particularly the rise of Nazi antisemitism and the ideology that paved the way for the Holocaust, before making assertions about it.”
Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, also condemned Albanese, describing her as a “Holocaust denier” and calling for her removal from the role.
“This is no random mistake, but a pattern of using the Holocaust and antisemitism to spread her anti-Israel obsession,” Danon said.
“It’s time for the UN to stop giving her sponsorship and fire her from her role once and for all.”
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