Morphed image of Hitler falsely shared to compare Nazi dictator with Modi

By: Rahul Adhikari
May 9 2023

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Context

Actor and politician Prakash Raj on May 4 shared a photo comparing Adolf Hitler with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The viral image is a collage of two pictures where Hitler and Modi are seen standing in front of children behind barbed wire fences. Sharing the photo, Raj wrote, "History repeats..Future is behind the Barbed wire .. BEWARE..ಇತಿಹಾಸ ಮರುಕಳಿಸುತ್ತಿದೆ .. ಭವಿಷ್ಯ ಮುಳ್ಳು ತಂತಿಯ ಹಿಂದಿದೆ . ಎಚ್ಚೆತ್ತುಕೊಳ್ಳಿ #justasking.” The post has garnered over 31.2k likes and 7,700 retweets. Many other Twitter and Facebook users also shared the same image.

In Fact

Reverse image searches revealed that Hitler's image was morphed, created by merging two images using editing tools. One of the photos shows Hitler standing, while the other captures child survivors of Auschwitz standing behind a barbed wire fence. We located the image of Hitler on the stock image website Alamy, while the image of the children is available on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's website. The latter is from the Soviet film about the liberation of Auschwitz, shot over several months beginning January 27, 1945. The film contains both staged and real footage of adult and child survivors captured within hours and days of their liberation; and scenes of their evacuation weeks or months later. The viral photo is clearly created by digitally adding Hitler's photo to the frame capturing children at the Auschwitz concentration camp.

The other image, which shows Modi waving at children standing behind a barbed wire fence, was taken in Karnataka when the prime minister visited Kalaburgi to campaign for the upcoming state elections. During his visit, he interacted with children.

The Verdict

Two images from Nazi Germany have been merged to create a false comparison between Modi and Hitler. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.