German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on Sunday unloaded on anti-mask protestors who equated themselves with victims of Nazi oppressions, after the country implemented stringent social distancing and lockdown measures after it witnessed a sharp rise in the number of COVID-19 cases in the country. 

The 54-year-old accused the anti-mask protesters of trivialising and denigrating Holocaust victims and of downplaying the untold miseries inflicted on the Jewish population of the country as well as ‘making a mockery’ of the courage of resistance fighters.

The Social Democratic Party of Germany leader’s criticism comes after a woman protesting the newly implemented coronavirus restrictions in Hanover on Sunday said she felt “just like Sophie Scholl,” a German student who was executed by Nazi officials in 1943 for her role in the resistance.

A video of the woman comparing herself to Scholl was circulated on social media websites and was viewed over a million times, with netizens condemning the speaker.

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Maas, took notice and tweeted, “Anyone today comparing themselves to Sophie Scholl or Anne Frank is making a mockery of the courage it took to stand up to the Nazis.”

The Social Democratic Party leader added, “It trivialises the Holocaust and shows an unbearable forgetting of history. Nothing connects the corona protests with the resistance fighters. Nothing!”

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In a similar event last week, an 11-year old had compared herself with Jewish teenager Anne Frank while addressing an anti-mask demo in the Western city of Karlsruhe.

The comparison had left the Karlsruhe police fuming, who labelled the comment as “inappropriate and tasteless.”