PdL House whip defends Berlusconi’s Hitler remarks
(ANSA) – Rome, November 6 – The People of Freedom (PdL) House whip on Wednesday defended remarks made by media mogul Silvio Berlusconi, who said his children feel like Jewish families under Hitler because of alleged judicial persecution against the three-time former premier.
”Comparing the pain of one’s children…to the persecution of the Jews does not trivialize an enormous tragedy. Rather, it shows how much President Berlusconi shares their pain”, said MP Renato Brunetta, an erstwhile Socialist economist who switched to Berlusconi’s party in 1994.
”Both his parents raised Berlusconi to feel himself spiritually a Jew”, he added.
The president of the Jewish Community in Rome earlier blasted Berlusconi’s remarks.
”It is not the first time that well-known faces of Italian politics trivialize the history of Nazism and the Holocaust”, said Riccardo Pacifici.