AFP/Rome

Italy’s former premier Silvio Berlusconi, who blames his tax fraud conviction on persecution by magistrates, says his children “feel like the Jews under Hitler”.
“My children tell me they feel like the families of Jews in Germany must have felt under Hitler’s regime. The whole world is against us,” he is quoted as saying in an upcoming collection of interviews with journalist Bruno Vespa, an extract of which was released yesterday.
The 77-year-old media magnate is renowned for his off-colour comments and diplomatic gaffes, in the past likening a German member of the European Parliament to a Nazi guard and describing US President Barack Obama as “sun-tanned”.
The head of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, Renzo Gettegna, slammed the latest slur as “not only inappropriate and incomprehensible but also offensive to the memory of those deprived of every right and, after atrocities and unutterable suffering, their lives”.
Berlusconi’s comments also sparked furore across the Italian centre-left.
“To trivialise a terrible tragedy such as the Shoah for an everyday political polemic as Berlusconi has done is chilling,” Nichi Vendola, head of the Left, Ecology, Freedom (SEL) party, said in a tweet.