Whoopi Goldberg has apologised for saying the Holocaust “is not about race” on Monday’s (31 January) episode of The View.
Appearing alongside her hosts Joy Behar, Sara Haines, and Ana Navarro, Goldberg was discussing a Tennessee school board choosing to ban Maus, a graphic novel about the Holocaust, in which around 6 million Jews killed by Nazi Germany.
After talking about the graphic novel, Goldberg said: “Let’s be truthful about it because the Holocaust isn’t about race. No. It’s not about race!”
Later that night, Goldberg offered her “sincerest apologies” for hurting Jewish people “around the world” in a Twitter post.
The 66-year-old wrote: “On today’s show, I said the Holocaust is ‘not about race but about man’s inhumanity to man.’ I should have said it was about both.”
“As Jonathan Greenblatt from the Anti-Defamation League shared, ‘The Holocaust was about the Nazis’ systemic annihilation of the Jewish people – who they deemed to be an inferior race.’ I stand corrected.”
Mr Greenblatt is the sixth national director and CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, an organisation whose mission is to combat antisemitism and secure justice for Jewish people.
Mr Greenblatt, who previously served in the White House as Special Assistant to former US president Barack Obama and director of the Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation, retweeted Goldberg’s apology, thanking her for “acknowledging the Holocaust for what it was.”
“As antisemitism surges to historic levels, I hope we can work together to combat ignorance of that horrific crime and the hate that threatens all,” the 51-year-old American entrepreneur said on Monday.
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Goldberg was also criticised by viewers of the show on social media after her comments on the Holocaust, with one tweeting: “Some Holocaust education would do Whoopi a world of good.”
Another user wrote: “Whoopi’s ignorance is scary.”
During Monday’s episode of The View, Goldberg repeatedly tried to prove her point that the Holocaust was about “man’s inhumanity to man” despite her co-hosts interjecting to remind her that Jews in Nazi Germany was a different race”.
“But you’re missing the point! You’re missing the point,” Goldberg insisted, adding, “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. That’s the problem”.
The Holocaust is widely defined as the state-sanctioned extermination of Jews by Nazi Germany across Europe during the Second World War.
