94-year-old Holocaust survivor invites DeSean Jackson to tour Auschwitz
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A 94-year-old Holocaust survivor is inviting embattled Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson to visit Nazi death camps after Jackson shared anti-Semitic posts on Instagram.
In an open letter to Jackson, Holocaust survivor Edward Mosberg denounced the wideout’s posts — including one with a quote attributed to Adolf Hitler — as “heartbreaking and so deeply wrong.”
Mosberg, who survived several Nazi concentration camps, including Mauthausen in Austria, said his late wife was a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau, where roughly 1.1 million people were killed between 1940 and 1945.
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“The Allied Forces, including American troops, carrying with them American flags fought valiantly and suffered unspeakable losses to stop this evil, the same man you quote!” Mosberg wrote. “I would invite you to join me at the sites of these German Nazi death camps, to understand what evil truly is, and why sharing quotes of the man behind this evil is so offensive to us all.”
Mosberg is the honorary chairman of a group called From The Depths, which works with Holocaust survivors worldwide and Jewish communities in Eastern Europe, according to its website.
“After the terrors of the Holocaust, I was blessed to have the opportunity to come to the United States of America,” Mosberg’s letter continued. “I arrived as [an] immigrant without a penny to my name and worked hard to build a future for my wife and family.”
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The group would host Jackson at Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland, Mosberg said.
We await your response,” Mosberg wrote.
Jackson, 33, had not responded to Mosberg’s letter as of early Thursday, but he will tour the Horwitz-Wasserman Holocaust Memorial Plaza in Philadelphia, CNN reports.
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The site’s chairman, David Adelman, tweeted Tuesday that Jackson will be hosted for an education session and tour of the plaza, saying he’s “confident we can turn this into a positive together.”
The three-time Pro Bowler apologized Tuesday for his Instagram posts, saying they were “insensitive” and “ill-informed” following widespread outrage.
Jackson, who cited a quote widely attributed to Hitler as saying “Jews will blackmail America,” also took heat for another Instagram post supporting Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Island leader known for fiery anti-Semitic rhetoric.
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Currently signed to a three-year deal worth nearly $28 million, Jackson can become a free agent in 2022. A message seeking comment from his reps was not immediately returned Thursday.