@Kizuchan:
Some 5-6 years ago Isayama tweeted apologism about what Japan did to Korea, unable to see the similarity with what the Nazis did in Europe. He also modeled Pixis after a war criminal. Nothing else seems to have surfaced since then.
The story itself just seems to be thoughtless about the analogue it uses. The Jewish people were persecuted, but never had a grand empire, so drawing parallels with the Holocaust is potentially insensitive depending on how you take it.
Do you see it as making light of the tragedy and saying a dumb conspiracy thing along the lines of "the Jewish people did bad, too" or read it as a metaphor for dehumanization? I think the story definitely aims for the latter.
The asterix here is that both stories we have of what happened are exgaggerated propaganda.
The Eldian side used their story to spur a freedom movement. The Marleyan side uses their exgaggerated version of the story as an excuse to persecute the Eldians. It's directly stated both are probably wrong.
The story itself doesn't really pick sides right away, which is on very shaky ground because the Holocaust is just about as black and white as you can get and using that imagery while talking about "both sides" is pretty iffy, but it never excuses or paints the horrible things the Marleyans do as justified, either.
I'd say instead of using historical imagery, using thought-up fantasy imagery would've mostly fixed the potentially messy implications of this stuff.
Can´t say anything about the tweets but Pixis´inspiration, Akiyama, is no war criminal, had nothing to do with the atrocities that preceded world war two.
I think it´s the general, supposed "call for arms" and militarism Isayama is propagating with young soldiers fighting proudly for their dreams and freedom against giant, humanoid but hideous opponents.
And it´s on the background of Japan´s PM, Abe, trying to remove the ban on Japan to fight outside their own country and have a significant military force stationed outside of Japan, in his words, to protect themselves mostly from North Korea and China.
And that led to much protest in the citizenry who, either themselves or by connection to family, remember World War 2 and the imperialistic militarism.
You can discuss how positively Isayama shows the military but it´s pretty obvious that the Survey Corps at least, who constantly want to get out of the walls to explore and expand humanity´s world, is shown in a positive light, and the parallel is apparent, albeit very simplistic.
Regarding the parallel between Marley/Eldia and the Holocaust, like i said, the situation is significantly different, so much that you can excuse it with simpyl being an inspiration for him rather than purposely drawing parallels to get a point across.