(Parsippany, NJ) Former New Jersey Assemblywoman BettyLou DeCroce said the opposition to government mandates on Covid-19 vaccines and masks verbalized by a Hanover Township Board of Education member went beyond the bounds of acceptable public discourse an should be condemned.

According to published reports, the BOE member Marc Amoresano posted a photo on Facebook of Anne Frank, which included the text, “The people who hid Anne Frank were breaking the law. The people who killed Anne Frank were following the law. THE LAW IS NOT A MORAL COMPASS.”

Amoresano told NJ.com that his post was meant to be satirical and that he was referencing the overreach of the government and equating that to the overreach of the government at that time” (Nazi Germany in World War II).

DeCroce said the board’s members remarks “are way out bounds and wildly off target, not to mention painful to persons of the Jewish faith, all those who suffered under the Nazi regime of Adolph Hitler — and the U.S. soldiers who fought the Nazi tyranny.”

“Mr. Amoresano sits on a board that is responsible to teaching children. Part of the board’s responsibility is ensuring that children respect history and use historical context correctly. Mr. Amoresano failed his district and his students,” said DeCroce, a Republican.

DeCroce said any students who may have read Amoresano’s post or read about it in a newspaper could easily be confused into thinking that the horrors of the Nazi genocide could be justified.
“Mr. Amoresano’s attempt at satire missed its mark,” said DeCroce, who served for 9 years in the state legislature representing eastern Morris County.

“Like many others I disagree with the abuse of power by both the federal government and by Gov. Murphy’s executive orders during the pandemic. But to equate those abuses to the atrocities of the Nazi regime and the suffering a young teenage girl is an atrocious misapplication of history, especially for someone who sits on a Board of Education,” said DeCroce, whose father and uncles fought in World War II and were residents of Hanover Township.

“The problem with current day political and social discourse on issues – as demonstrated by Mr. Amoresano, is that it has become reckless and intellectually imprecise,” said DeCroce. “It’s no wonder that our state and nation cannot solve problems when people on both sides of an argument are throwing incendiary verbal bombs at each other. “

The Diary of Anne Frank became an international best seller after its publication in 1947 and required reading in schools throughout the nation. She began writing her story of seclusion in an attic hiding from the Nazis when she was 13. Eventually, she was captured by Nazi soldiers and died in the Bergen Belson prison camp at age 15 – a few weeks before the prisoners were liberated by British soldiers in 1945.