Whoopi Goldberg is receiving wide criticism after making a comment on Monday’s The View that the Holocaust was not about race.
The View host made the claim on the latest episode of the ABC program during a discussion about a Tennessee school district voting to pull Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize winning graphic novel Maus, which is about the Holocaust, due to “inappropriate language.”
“Let’s be truthful about it because Holocaust isn’t about race,” Goldberg said. “It’s not about race. It’s not about race. It’s about man’s inhumanity to man.”
Co-host Ana Navarro pointed out, “But it’s about white supremacists going after after Jews–“
“But these are two white groups of people!” Goldberg said. “The minute you turn it into race it goes down this alley. Let’s talk about it for what it is. It’s how people treat each other. It doesn’t matter if you’re Black or white, Jews, it’s each other.”
Goldberg’s comments have drawn immediate backlash from some viewers, as well as from some Jewish leaders.
The official Aushwitz Memorial Twitter account messaged Goldberg with an online course about the Holocaust.
Newsflash @WhoopiGoldberg 6 million of us were gassed, starved and massacred because we were deemed an inferior race by the Nazis.
How dare you minimize our trauma and suffering! pic.twitter.com/nD8drxWpxJ
— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) January 31, 2022
American Jewish Committee CEO David Harris tweeted: “Whoopi Goldberg absurdly claims the #Holocaust ‘isn’t about race.’ Nazi Germany considered all Jews a ‘subhuman race.’ That’s why they wanted to exterminate the entire Jewish people, including my family, & almost succeeded. Please rethink & apologize.”
Meanwhile, Israeli writer Hen Mazzig tweeted, “Being Jewish means watching white nationalists call for your death because you’re ‘not white’ while ladies on national TV say the Holocaust was ‘white people killing white people…y’all go fight amongst yourselves.’”
ABC had no comment Monday afternoon.
Source: Hollywood
