DVIR ABRAMOVICH: More proof Australia is in an anti-Semitism emergency

It started with a smile and a raised arm.

In a TikTok video posted to 1.2 million followers, Australian nurse and lifestyle influencer Aimee Connor documented a day in her life. In between brushing her teeth and preparing for work, she performed a gesture that should have stopped the world cold.

The nazi salute.

No context. No irony. Just the unmistakable outstretched arm that once heralded gas chambers, firing squads and genocide.

After public outrage, the video vanished. Then came the notes app apology: she claimed it was meant to be a military salute, not a nazi one.

She said she was misunderstood. That she never intended to cause offense. That she was “grateful” police cleared her of wrongdoing. Then, with a sombre selfie, she signed off.

Case closed? Not even close.

Let’s call this what it is: a cultural emergency.

For Holocaust survivors — those few still alive to bear witness — that salute is not a misunderstanding. It is the sound of boots in the street. It is the last image before a loved one was shot, or deported, or vanished. It is not “content.” It is a crime against memory.

And to trivialise that horror for likes and views is not just tasteless. It is unforgivable.

This moment struck me like a dagger. I’ve looked Holocaust survivors in the eye — some with numbers still etched into their skin — and listened as their voices broke describing the last time they saw that arm raised, over cheering crowds and rising flames.

I led Australia’s national campaign to ban the nazi salute — a battle that took years, tears, and rooms full of pain. I carried those stories into Parliament. I sat with survivors who lost everything and asked only one thing: please don’t let them forget.

And now, the same gesture that once saluted Adolf Hitler is being used in a morning routine video.

We are watching the casualisation of evil. And the world is yawning.

No, this is not “just a mistake.” This is a flashing red siren in a culture that is forgetting too fast and caring too little.

When the nazi salute becomes a digital punchline, when influencers can perform genocidal symbols with a wink and still grow their brand, we are not living in a tolerant society — we are sleepwalking toward moral ruin.

Let’s remember exactly what that salute meant. It meant loyalty to a regime that exterminated six million Jews. It meant allegiance to an ideology that saw some people as vermin. That gesture accompanied the cries of “Sieg Heil!” as books were burned, synagogues destroyed, and children ripped from their parents.

It is a symbol that should be buried with the ashes of Auschwitz.

And yet here we are.

Even more disturbing is the apology itself.

Nowhere in her statement did Aimee Connor acknowledge the Jewish community, the Holocaust, or the victims of the nazis. Her remorse was directed at the military — for misusing their salute — not at the survivors or their children who watched her video and may have wept.

That omission is not a footnote. It is the entire story.

This is not only an insult to the memory of those murdered by the nazis. It is a spit on the graves of the brave Diggers who fought and sacrificed their lives to defeat Hitler’s regime and destroy the very ideology this gesture represents.

Because what this influencer did — intentionally or not — was resurrect a salute that belongs in the museum of horrors.

Whether she knew what it meant or not is irrelevant. That gesture is soaked in blood and no one gets to wave it away as harmless.

Let me be clear: intent does not erase impact. Whether accidental or deliberate, performing a nazi salute in any context is an act that reopens wounds and desecrates memory.

This is what happens when we fail to teach history.

When genocide becomes a five-second clip.When nazism becomes a meme.When the world shrugs and says, “She didn’t mean it.”

And no, this is not about “cancel culture.” This is not about punishing someone forever.

This is a matter of collective responsibility. Because when influencers can post genocidal symbols without grasping their weight, we have failed — not just as a Jewish community, but as a nation.

Let me ask Aimee this: What would she say to the boy in Warsaw who saw that salute before his family was shot in the ghetto?

What would she tell the girl in Prague who watched her father forced to his knees by a soldier screaming that salute?

Would she explain that it was all a misunderstanding? That it was just for likes?

There is no moral grey area here.

The nazi salute is not up for reinterpretation.

It is not context-dependent.

It is the universal sign of the most evil ideology ever conceived.

And when we allow it to seep back into public view without consequence, we do not just dishonour the dead.

We invite the next atrocity.

This is not a Jewish problem. This is a human problem. And silence is not neutrality, it is complicity.

Aimee Connor may have closed her apps. But the stain remains.

Every Australian — and every person who believes in the dignity of human life — should be asking: how did we get here?

And more importantly: how do we make sure this never happens again?

History remembers those who stood up. Not those who scrolled past.

The fire is rising. The question is — will we put it out, or let it burn?

Dr Dvir Abramovich is the chair of the Anti-Defamation Commission