Sen. Charles Schumer on Thursday responded to conservative critics who had compared his Ex-PATRIOT Act to laws imposed by the Nazis.

“I know a thing or two about what Nazis did,” Schumer, a Jew, said on the Senate floor. “Some of my relatives were killed by them.”

The Ex-PATRIOT Act would impose a 30 percent tax on the capital gains of anybody who renounces their U.S. citizenship.

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The bill was proposed in response to billionaire Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, who is renouncing his U.S. citizenship to avoid paying millions in taxes.

“Saying that a person who made their fortune specifically because of the positive elements in American society in turn has the responsibility to do right by America is not even on the same planet as what the Nazis did to the Jews,” Schumer said. “The comparison is odious, but it is in a bunch of these right-wing blogs.”

Watch video, uploaded to YouTube by the Huffington Post, below:

[Image by Bill Ingalls]