An anti-vax protester dressed in a Nazi concentration camp costume sparked outrage – before reportedly being beaten by a furious onlooker.
The man was chanting and holding a sign comparing Covid vaccine mandates to the Holocaust when he was reportedly attacked by a woman in her 40s.
Footage filmed on a street corner in Melbourne, Australia shows the anti-vaxxer wearing a blue and white striped costume and holding a sign reading: 'History repeats'.
Passersby confronted the man, calling him an "absolute disgrace" before one woman stepped in and beat him, according to The Daily Mail.
The anti-vax protester's actions have been widely condemned.
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"I spoke to the witness who filmed this, a Jewish woman in her 50s, who has Holocaust survivors in her family," said Dvir Abramovich, chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission, a group set up to combat antisemitism in Australia.
"She and her friend approached the man and told him he is an 'absolute disgrace'.
"Nothing in Australia comes even close to the indescribable atrocities carried out on an industrial scale by the Nazis, and to suggest that we are on the road to Auschwitz is beyond words and divorced from reality."
Mr Abramovich later issued a statement saying: “No, Victoria is not becoming Nazi Germany and those opposing the vaccination mandate and proposed pandemic laws must stop with their ugly tactics.
“There is no equivalence between public health measures, laws and vaccinations aimed at saving lives to the Holocaust, in which six million Jews and millions of others were slaughtered and burned in the gas chambers.
"People can of course voice their disagreement with government policy, but they should not appropriate the Holocaust to advance their causes."
"Imagine the pain Holocaust survivors who lost family members would feel walking down the street would feel seeing this individual," Mr Abramovich said.
Witnesses have criticised the police for allegedly standing by as the protest continued on Saturday afternoon.
According to Mr Abramovich, “The Jewish woman and her friend questioned why the police were detaining the woman and not the man and were told that he had right to freedom of speech.”
The anti-vaxxer was eventually told to move on.
Victoria Police told Daily Mail Australia they could not tell which officers attended and could not comment on the matter.
Thousands of protesters gathered in Melbourne on Saturday to oppose the government's new pandemic legislation and vaccine mandates in the state of Victoria.
