A judge who described a farmer convicted of animal cruelty as running an “equine Belsen” has been condemned by Jewish groups for an “abhorrent” comparison to the Holocaust.
District Judge Leo Pyle made a reference to the Nazi concentration camp when he was shown pictures of a sick horse owned by David Davies, 58, who was found guilty of causing unnecessary suffering.
Vets refused to castrate three-year-old horse Tommy because it was too weak to withstand a general anaesthetic. They alerted the RSPCA who raided Brookhill Farm, Pinxton, Derbyshire.
The judge said: “This was something of an equine Belsen. This was an animal in an appalling state.”
In response to the comparison Raya Kalenova, Executive Vice-President and CEO of the European Jewish Congress said: “The Holocaust was the single most horrific and tragic event in the history of mankind. To trivialise it this way by comparing the way a farmer treats his animals to the murder of millions of Jews in Belsen is abhorrent.”
“We condemn this type of dangerous language in the strongest possible terms as it undermines the memory of the Holocaust and prevents future generations from learning from the past.
“At a time when antisemitism is worrying high in the UK and Europe this type of language is irresponsible and highly offensive.”
Belsen, also known as Bergen-Belsen, was a Nazi concentration camp in northern Germany, in which around 50,000 people died between 1943 and 1945.
