Francesca Albanese appearing on the Estatales CLATE YouTube channel[Missing Credit]
Her comments prompted criticism from Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, who accused Albanese of “completely rewriting” the meaning of antisemitism and distorting the history of the Holocaust.
Albanese subsequently acknowledged that she had misunderstood the historical use of the term “Muselmann” and “sincerely apologised”.
In a statement to the JC, Albanese said: “The term antisemitism was coined in the 19th specifically to denote hatred of Jews. I misread the term ‘Muselmann’, used in Nazi camps for prisoners at the brink of death (as documented by Primo Levi), as a reference to Muslims. From this I wrongly inferred that antisemitism originally meant hatred of all Semitic peoples.
“The rest of my statement fully recognised that six million Jews were murdered for being Jews, and there should be no confusion about that. I sincerely apologise to anyone who may have felt offended or misled.”
The word “Muselmann”, as used by prisoners in Nazi concentration camps, meant inmates who were extremely weak and close to death; it did not denote people “of the Muslim faith”.
Holocaust literature, including the writings of Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi, used the term to describe prisoners in this condition.
The German word resembles historical terms for “Muslim”, and its precise origins are disputed. One theory is that the physical condition of prisoners who could no longer stand upright may have evoked the posture of Muslim prayer. Other explanations have been proposed by survivors and scholars.
Albanese's original comments also suggested that the term “antisemitism” was initially intended to describe hostility towards non-European people from the Middle East.
The term was coined in Germany in 1879 by Wilhelm Marr, an antisemitic political agitator who used it in the context of his campaign against Jews. Historical accounts describe Marr's use of the term as a new, racialised form of anti-Jewish ideology.
The word “Semitic” itself is primarily a linguistic classification, referring to a family of languages that includes Hebrew and Arabic. The historical meaning of “antisemitism”, however, developed as a term for anti-Jewish hostility.
Neuer said Albanese, who has a history of inflammatory comments about Jews and Israel, was not merely offering an alternative definition of antisemitism but was “completely rewriting its meaning” while “distorting the history of the Holocaust”.
Neuer added Albanese was wrong to portray antisemitism as a general hatred of “Semitic peoples”, arguing that the term was coined specifically to describe hostility towards Jews and that the Nazis targeted Jews as Jews.
He also strongly criticised her use of “Muselmann”, saying it referred to concentration-camp prisoners who were starving and close to death, not to Jews being identified as Muslims.
