Peruvian President Jose Maria Balcazar has sparked outrage after claiming that Jews were partly responsible for “pushing” Germany into war.
The comments were made on Tuesday in a speech during a ceremony for the 138th anniversary of the Chamber of Commerce of Lima. Balcazar referenced a book called Los enemigos del comercio (“The enemies of commerce”) by Antonio Escohotado, saying that the arguments in the book should be recognized.
Balcazar then said, “It is a monument to the history of commerce: how bills of exchange were born, how international trade moved, what role the Jews had in Germany’s national and international trade, how Germany was pushed into a war also partly because of the Jews because they controlled all the banks, all the commerce, and practiced usury.
“All these historical details need to be remembered through Escohotado, so that we prepare ourselves better and recognize what the history and the via crucis [hardships] of the brothers dedicated to commerce was. It is truly interesting.”
In response, the Embassy of Israel in Peru and the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany released a joint statement condemning the claim that Jews controlled German commerce and the German banking system, and therefore pushed the Germans into World War II, as “absurd, historically untenable, and in violation of the memory of millions of German Jewish citizens murdered by the Nazis.”
The statement continued, “It should be remembered that it was Adolf Hitler and the Nazis who began the Second World War by attacking Poland in 1939. Nazi ideology, racist and antisemitic, not only discriminated against its Jewish fellow citizens, but resulted in the murder of 6 million Jews in concentration camps. The Holocaust must never be trivialized under any circumstances.”
Jewish organizations react to Peruvian president's statements on Holocaust
Israeli Ambassador Eran Yuvan and the Chargé d’Affaires of the Embassy of Germany, David Schmidt, then asked Balcazar to retract his statements.
The Jewish Association of Peru (AJP) said it had listened “with astonishment” to Balcazar’s speech, delivered to a room of ministers, the diplomatic corps, and other important attendees.
“In his remarks, the president echoes outdated antisemitic theories that blame Jews for having pushed Germany into war because of their control of commerce, banking, and the practice of usury,” it said.
“It is incredible that, in the 21st century, arguments worthy of dark medieval times are being used to blame the victims of their own Holocaust.”
AJP said it expected a prompt public apology from “the person who represents all Peruvians.”
Following these two condemnations, the Presidency of the Republic issued a statement saying, “The president of the republic regrets that those statements generated a mistaken perception regarding the Jewish people in the context of the beginning of World War II.
“The Peruvian state has consistently maintained that Nazi fanaticism was the cause of that war and was responsible for the unforgivable genocide of the Jewish people. This historic position, which led Peru to firmly support the creation of the State of Israel, remains unchanged.”
“President José María Balcazar expresses his strongest rejection of the genocide committed against the Jewish people during World War II, reiterates his condemnation of antisemitism and all forms of discrimination, and expresses his solidarity with the victims of the Holocaust.”
Balcazar is a left-wing nationalist figure who rose from Congress to the presidency just recently, at the start of 2026.
Like several recent Peruvian leaders, his political career has been marked by controversy, including criminal investigations into illicit appropriation of funds and his defense of child marriage.