A spokesperson for Sweden’s Green Party apologized on Monday after calling the migrant crisis in Europe “the new Auschwitz.”
Asa Romson made the remark on Sunday during a televised debate of political leaders, media outlet The Local reported.
Having stirred up controversy with the Holocaust allusion, Romson quickly issued an apology to “any of the groups” affected by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s crimes during World War II, including “zigenare, Jews and gay people.”
However, the use of “zigenare,” a derogatory word for Gypsies, sparked further outrage against the Green Party spokesperson.
Romson was forced to apologize again, telling Swedish television SVT she was sorry and that the expression she had used “did not fit.”
Her press spokesperson, Hellstrom Gefvert, insisted to the television station that Romson was “tired” after the debate when she gave her apology, but admitted her choice of words was “indefensible.”
Yet another apology was then posted on Twitter on Monday, with Romson writing: “Again: It was wrong to make an Auschwitz analogy. I sincerely apologize.”
It is not the first time, The Local reported, that a Swedish politician has compared Europe’s refugee problem to the Holocaust.
Liberal Party MP Cecillia Wilkstrom told the news site last month that EU member states were not doing enough to ensure the safe passage for migrants, and that future generation would compare their actions to Sweden “turning a blind eye” to the Holocaust.
“I think that my children and grandchildren are going to ask why more wasn’t done to help people running away from ISIS, or violence in Eritrea or wherever, when we knew that people were dying in their thousands,” Wilkstrom said.
“People will ask the same question they did after the war, ‘if you were aware, why didn’t you do something?”