Whoopi Goldberg caused a wave of outrage for her controversial thoughts on the Holocaust. The actress claimed on US talk show The View that the Holocaust isn’t about “race” at all.
Goldberg went on to say on the show that the Nazi genocide of European Jews was a conflict between two groups of white people. Critics counter that Hitler himself made racist remarks about Jews. Goldberg later apologized for her statements.
The talk show was actually about the ban of a comic in the US state of Tennessee that deals with the crimes of the Nazis in parabolic form. Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus, which depicts Nazis as cats and Jews as mice, won several literary awards. The ban by the school authorities, which justified this with the depiction of nudity and suicide in the book, was all the more surprising. Therefore, the book is not appropriate for 13-year-olds.
Goldberg, who has been on The View since 2007, expressed surprise on the show at the rationale behind the ban. After all, it is about the Holocaust, the murder of more than six million people, she pointed out. “If they do, let’s be honest. Because the Holocaust is not about race,” the Oscar winner said afterwards.
“It’s about the inhumanity of man against man”
Co-host Joy Behar replied that the Nazis assumed Jews were a different race. But Goldberg reiterated her point: “But this isn’t about race. It’s about man’s inhumanity to man.”
Goldberg also disagreed with co-host Ana Navarro. White supremacy does play a role in the Holocaust. And Jews as well as Sinti and Roma were persecuted. For them, these are still two groups of white people, Goldberg replied.
Sara Haines also said on the show that the Nazis did not see Jews as white people. For Goldberg, however, that’s not the point. “Let’s talk about what it’s really about. It’s about how people treat each other. And that’s a problem,” the actress said.
The show was later criticized on social media for spreading misinformation.
Jonathan Greenblatt, chairman of the Jewish organization Anti-Defamation League, wrote on Twitter that the Holocaust was very much about the systematic extermination of Jews, who the Nazis saw as an inferior race. The Nazis dehumanized Jews through racist propaganda, thereby justifying the murder of more than six million people. The ideological distortion of the Holocaust is very dangerous, Greenblatt wrote to Goldberg.
Meghan McCain, the show’s former co-host, also wrote on Twitter: “Anti-Semitism is a cancer and a poison that is increasingly being condoned in our culture and on television – and entering spaces that should shock us all.”
Conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro posted just a quote from Adolf Hitler, who had written in his seminal work Mein Kampf: “Do not base their entire existence on one big lie, namely that they are a religious community, when in reality they are one race?”
Whoopi Goldberg apologizes after blatant criticism
Goldberg later apologized for her statements. “On today’s show I said that the Holocaust is ‘not about race but about man’s inhumanity to man.’ I should have said it’s about both,” the 66-year-old wrote on Twitter. She has always supported Jewish people around the world and apologizes for the pain she has caused, Goldberg added.
+++This article first appeared on musikexpress.de+++