Whoopi Goldberg apologized on Monday for dismissing the racial motivation behind the Holocaust, hours after a number of Jewish advocacy organizations denounced The View host.
“On today’s show, I said the Holocaust ‘is not about race, but about man’s inhumanity to man.’ I should have said it is about both. As Jonathan Greenblatt from the Anti-Defamation League shared, ‘The Holocaust was about the Nazi’s systematic annihilation of the Jewish people — who they deemed to be an inferior race.’ I stand corrected,” Goldberg wrote in a tweet.
The apology came after a number of Jewish organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League, criticized Goldberg’s on-air rant.
Goldberg surprised her audience and co-hosts when she argued on stage Monday that “the Holocaust isn’t about race.”
“No, it’s not about race,” she repeated. “Well, they considered Jews a different race,” a co-host anchor retorted.
“It’s not about race,” Goldberg doubled down. “It’s about man’s inhumanity to man, that’s what it’s about.”
While most tragedies inspired by malice do obviously involve inhumanity, Goldberg’s colleagues attempted to explain that the Holocaust was a fundamentally different, as Hitler’s regime specifically aimed to exterminate Europe’s Jews, in addition to disabled and nomadic peoples.
“But it’s about a white supremacist going after Jews and Gypsies,” guest co-host Ana Navarro reminded Goldberg.
“But these are two white groups of people,” Goldberg said, ignoring the fact that Hitler considered the Jewish people an inferior race, not merely a religion.
Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt and other Jewish advocacy groups rushed to Twitter to set the record straight on the history.
“No @WhoopiGoldberg, the #Holocaust was about the Nazi’s systematic annihilation of the Jewish people — who they deemed to be an inferior race,” he responded. “They dehumanized them and used this racist propaganda to justify slaughtering 6 million Jews. Holocaust distortion is dangerous. #ENOUGH”
Organization StopAntisemitism slammed Goldberg’s comments, accusing her of reducing the Jewish people’s horrendous plight to an ordinary human conflict.
“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!” the group wrote.
StandWithUs, an organization dedicated to fighting antisemitism and defending Israel, echoed the other groups, directing Goldberg on Twitter to an article explaining the Nazis’ racial ideology.
“The Holocaust was driven by multiple factors, and there is no doubt that one of them was Nazi racism against Jews. Nazis back then and white supremacists today consider Jews to be a different and inferior race,” the group said.