Each year, millions of animals are killed for food -- but most Penn students would not think of comparing this to the extermination of 11 million people by the Nazis during World War II.
But according to the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and a novel by Yiddish writer Isaac Bashevis, "In relation to [animals], all people are Nazis -- for them it is an eternal Treblinka."
Yesterday, PETA sponsored a controversial event held at Wynn Commons called "Holocaust on Your Plate," the 11th exhibit of its kind shown around the country since February.
Matt Prescott -- the leader of the project -- explained that PETA wants everyone to know that "all beings feel pain, whether humans or animals. It just depends on whose life you value more."
Yet, the majority of Penn students in attendance said that one cannot compare the killing and eating of animals to the murder of humans.
"It's a disgusting, horrifying comparison," College freshman Michael Auerbach said.
Many seemed to agree with Auerbach as they passed by the exhibit, featuring posters of starving Jews on one side and caged chickens on another.
In reaction to the images, students turned their heads, or even threw back flyers handed to them once they were aware of the exhibit's message.
College junior Michelle Orsi had but one word to describe this event -- "offensive."
College senior Micah Liben expanded on Orsi's comment by shaking his head in disgust, saying that he was "shocked and dismayed" by this exhibit.
While PETA certainly did not draw support from the Penn community, the group did succeed in promoting extreme controversy among students.
"It's shocking," College sophomore Prem Tumkosit said. "This campaign belittles the Holocaust and is extremely inappropriate."
Despite the hostile reaction of many students, Prescott still said that the support for this project has been "overwhelmingly positive, especially among the Jewish community."
Prescott said PETA tries to justify this analogy and exhibit to those who do not agree with the display by encouraging them to read their literature, found at Masskilling.com.
"Families were torn apart in the Holocaust, and there is no better way to honor and memorialize their memory," Prescott said.
He continued by relating the Holocaust to killing of animals for meat -- "many animals are forced to live in cramped, filthy conditions, and 50,000 are killed per minute."
And according to Prescott, PETA justifies the comparison by stating that "just as the Nazis tried to dehumanize Jews by forcing them to live in filthy, crowded conditions, tearing children away from their mothers... animals of today's factory farms are stripped of all that is enjoyable and natural to them and treated as nothing more than meat."
Penn Police and Spectaguards lined Wynn Commons to keep response to the exhibit under control.
