JTA - Signs reading "Heil, Pritzker" and "Arbeit Mach Frei JB," were spotted at a Illinois protest at lockdown orders. Illinois' governor, JB Pritzker, is Jewish.
Anti-Semitic themes featured in another anti-lockdown demonstration, this time in Michigan, where governor Gretchen Whitmer was depicted as Hitler.
The Auschwitz Museum and Memorial condemned the sign in Illinois, writing: "'Arbeit macht frei' was a false, cynical illusion the SS gave to prisoners of #Auschwitz. Those words became one of the icons of human hatred. It’s painful to see this symbol instrumentalized & used again to spread hate. It’s a symptom of moral & intellectual degeneration."
Responding to the Michigan protest, President Donald Trump called the protesters “very good people,” harking back to his defense of protesters at the the deadly neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, in which he blamed “many sides” for the violence and said there were “very fine people” on both sides.
“The Governor of Michigan should give a little, and put out the fire,” Trump tweeted Friday. “These are very good people, but they are angry. They want their lives back again, safely! See them, talk to them, make a deal.”