Vergès’ Holocaust-minimizing comparison was denounced even by fellow 1961 campaigners.

Evidence

Thus, the position of Vergès, who was to argue at an anniversary conference at the Algerian Cultural Centre in Paris that the atrocities of French colonialism were ‘far more serious, far more current and far more frightening for the future’ than ‘a crime committed by some Nazis against some Jews’, was not typical of reactions at the time, and twenty-five years later remained in a minority even on the radical Left. Vergès was denounced by other prominent 17 October campaigners, including Einaudi, Didier Daeninckx and Pierre Vidal-Naquet, who accused him of antisemitism and attempting to minimise the Holocaust. — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 1390

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader rubric theme of Holocaust comparison politics and how anti-colonial activists policed their own ranks.