FederFauna's Hitler Prize. Photo: FederFauna.

An Italian trade union has drawn the ire of the Italian Jewish community for offering a spoof ‘Hitler Prize’ to people who work with animals, the Daily Mail reports.

FederFauna, a union for people who work commercially with animals, offered twisted logic for naming the prize after the brutal Nazi leader. The union said it was inspired by Hitler’s law to protect animals, while systematically killing millions of humans, which is how they feel pro-animal groups are now behaving.

Massimiliano Filippi, general secretary of FederFauna, said: “The Hitler Prize represents a condemnation of those who trample on human rights in the name of the ideology of ‘animal rights!’ I find that asking to stop experiments on rats and proposing instead experiments be done on prisoners has a close affinity to Nazism.”

A poster for the prize features a picture of Hitler feeding two deer at the entrance to the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Italian Rabbi Barbara Aeillo told the Local newspaper that the prize “exemplifies a disturbing trend of intolerance and hate that is on the rise not only in Italy but throughout Europe.”

“Creeping Nazism is a slow but steady trend that minimizes the Holocaust, demeans the memory of those murdered and diminishes the suffering of the survivors. The fact that a competition like the Hitler Award is even conceivable, let alone celebrated, is more than troubling and indicates a significant change in the Italian public’s general tolerance for anti-Semitic remarks and activity.”