JERUSALEM, Israel – Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson has accepted a 94-year-old Holocaust survivor’s invitation to visit Auschwitz with him after facing backlash for sharing an anti-Semitic message he attributed to Hitler on social media, The Jerusalem Post reports.
“I grew up in Los Angeles, and never really spent time with anyone from the Jewish community and didn’t know much about their history, this has been such a powerful experience for me to learn and educate myself,” Jackson said during a Zoom call meeting with Holocaust survivor Edward Mosberg.
Mosberg attended the meeting dressed in the uniform he wore while he was a prisoner at Mauthausen concentration camp.
“I want to take the proper steps to let people know that I never intentionally had any hatred in my heart, I never wanted to put the Jewish community down, I want to educate myself more and help bridge the gaps between all different cultures,” Jackson continued.
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The NFL star player sparked controversy last week when he posted on his Instagram story a quotation that said White Jews “will blackmail America. [They] will extort America, their plan for world domination won’t work if the Negroes know who they are.” Jackson incorrectly attributed this quotation to Hitler.
He also shared two posts on Instagram expressing support for notorious anti-Semite and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.
The Philadelphia Eagles immediately condemned Jackson, who later apologized for his “insensitive and ill-informed posts.” Mosberg sent an open letter to the player asking him to join him on a tour of Auschwitz-Birkenau to see first-hand the deadly consequences of anti-Semitism.
“Almost my entire family was murdered by the German Nazis during the Holocaust. I survived multiple German Nazi death camps, including Mauthausen concentration camp, my late wife was a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau,” he wrote. “Your post on Instagram quoting Adolf Hitler, the man behind one of the most evil regimes this world has ever known and the man responsible for the deaths of over 6 million Jews, including my dear parents and sisters, as well as 2 million ethnic Poles and millions of other nationalities and minorities, is heartbreaking and so deeply wrong.”
Jackson’s visit to Auschwitz will be coordinated by the organization From The Depths, which “aims to preserve the memory of the Holocaust and to give a name to those who were brutally murdered,” according to its website.
“Dialogue is the key to making this crazy world we live in a better place, with everything so divided is so powerful to bring us all together,” From The Depths founder Jonny Daniels said in a statement.
“We are working with DeSean and his team to set dates for this trip to go ahead and are happy that DeSean agreed.”
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