Rotterdam mayor: ISIS brutality similar to Holocaust atrocities

Rotterdam Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb compared the Holocaust to the "horrors of ISIS" during a recent visit to camp Westerbork with a group of students. "Even though I realize how inappropriate and painful that comparison can be. in Westerbork I made a comparison between the atrocities of the Holocaust and the horrors of ISIS. Because there are similarities", the Rotterdam mayor said during a commemoration of Kristallnacht in the Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam, broadcaster NOS reports. Kristallnacht, also called the night of the broken glass, was the beginning of Jewish persecution during World War II. During the night between November 9th and 10th, 1938 Nazi Germany looted and set fire to thousands of synagogues and Jewish shops and homes. The mayor emphasized that the Holocaust is beyond compare, but he felt it necessary to give the students something they can use to make a connection between the story of past and present. "Because the current political arena is complicated. It is almost impossible to see who is fighting against whom and what for." the broadcaster quotes Aboutaleb. Like the Nazis, ISIS is also performing an ethnic cleansing, only focused on Christians, Shiites, Alawites, Yazidis and moderate Muslims instead of Jews, according to Aboutaleb. "Not with an infernal machine such as in Nazi Germany, but with an illegal army of at most 40 thousand men. Backward, ignorant soldiers who leave a track of destruction and human misery behind them." Mayor Aboutaleb wants the Netherlands to strive for a "we-society". "Not divided, but together. Not with weapons, but with words. Not with hate, but with love."