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Calling
the Holocaust ‘sad’ is the first step towards denying it ever
happened
Jonathan Freedland
On
Holocaust Memorial Day, the White House issued a statement that did
not mention Jews or antisemitism – but this was no oversight by the
new administration
Monday 30 January
2017 16.51 GMT
As anyone who has
seen Denial, the new film about the 2000 libel trial brought by David
Irving against the historian Deborah Lipstadt, will know, Holocaust
denial can take many forms. In the face of all the evidence, there
are those who say that six million Jews were not murdered by the
Nazis; or that the gas chambers never existed; or that Adolf Hitler
had nothing to do with it. There is another strand, too; one denying
that Jews were specifically targeted for extermination. Even though
the Nazis infamously referred to their mass killings of Jews as “the
final solution to the Jewish problem”, this form of Holocaust
denial seeks to negate that core fact – to suggest that the second
world war saw lots of people get killed, and that Jews suffered just
like everyone else; no more and no less.
Such a view has long
been marginal, especially in the west, but on Friday it gained a new
and powerful advocate: the Trump administration. To mark Holocaust
Memorial Day, the White House issued a statement that did not mention
Jews or antisemitism at all.
At first, many
assumed it had been an error; an oversight by a new team that has not
exactly impressed with its competence. But at the weekend, Trump
spokewoman Hope Hicks confirmed that the wording had been deliberate:
“We are an incredibly inclusive group and we took into account all
of those who suffered,” she said. On Sunday, Trump’s chief of
staff, Reince Priebus, stuck to that position, saying that the White
House regarded “everyone’s suffering in the Holocaust” as “sad”
and obviously that included “all of the Jewish people affected” –
again implying that Jews were merely caught up in a generalised
attack on all people, rather than targeted for annihilation.
One point needs to
be stressed. The many Jewish groups – including ones previously
well-disposed to Trump, such as the Republican Jewish Coalition –
that have condemned the White House do so not because they
mistakenly, or arrogantly, believe Jews were the only victims of the
Nazi horror. Of course not. The Nazis were broad in their hatred,
targeting Roma, gay people and disabled people, as well as
socialists, communists and many others. But any full account of that
period begins with the recognition that Jews were singled out for
total eradication. Why would the Trump White House be resistant to
acknowledging that uncontroversial fact?
There has long been
a strain of thinking on the far right that says Jews and
African-Americans have engaged in “special pleading” over the
Holocaust and slavery for too long, and that it’s time to push
back. (Naturally, white supremacist groups warmly welcomed Trump’s
Holocaust statement.) Until a few months ago, such thinking
flourished only on the wilder shores of the “alt-right”. But now
the far-right has found a home in the White House, in the form of
Breitbart publisher turned senior presidential counsellor Steve
Bannon.
But there is a
simpler explanation, too. This, remember, is the administration that
believes in “alternative facts”, headed by a president who thinks
nothing of denying the existence of visible, demonstrable evidence.
That it should take a first step toward Holocaust denial is fully in
character.
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Kaine
likens Trump Remembrance Day statement to Holocaust denial
Senator
condemns White House failure to mention Jews in statement on day of
executive order instituting travel ban on Muslim-majority countries
Martin Pengelly and
Ben Jacobs
Sunday 29 January
2017 20.56 GMT
Senator Tim Kaine
said on Sunday that it was “not a coincidence” that the White
House did not mention Jews or Judaism on Holocaust Remembrance Day
yet Donald Trump signed an executive order banning travel from seven
Muslim-majority countries.
“The final
solution was about the slaughter of Jews,” said Kaine, Hillary
Clinton’s running mate in her defeat by Trump in November, in an
interview with NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday. “We have to
remember this. This is what Holocaust denial is.
“It’s either to
deny that it happened, or many Holocaust deniers acknowledge, ‘Oh,
yeah, people were killed. But it was a lot of innocent people. Jews
weren’t targeted.’ The fact that they did that and imposed this
religious test against Muslims in the executive orders on the same
day – this is not a coincidence.”
Kaine spoke after
White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, appearing on the same
show, stood by the original statement.
“I don’t regret
the words,” Priebus said, adding: “I mean, everyone’s suffering
in the Holocaust, including, obviously, all of the Jewish people.”
On Friday,
International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the White House said: “It
is with a heavy heart and somber mind that we remember and honor the
victims, survivors, heroes of the Holocaust. It is impossible to
fully fathom the depravity and horror inflicted on innocent people by
Nazi terror.”
Pressed on the
omission on Saturday, after criticism from the Anti-Defamation League
and Anne Frank Center, Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks told CNN:
“Despite what the media reports, we are an incredibly inclusive
group and we took into account all of those who suffered.”
She added: “It was
our honor to issue a statement in remembrance of this important day.”
Six million Jews
were killed in the Holocaust, and during its ascent and the second
world war the Nazi regime singled out Jewish people for persecution.
Hicks also sent CNN a Huffington Post story about the millions of
people who died for their ethnicity, sexual orientation, or political
or religious beliefs.
Past presidents have
marked Holocaust Remembrance Day with explicit mention of Judaism and
antisemitism. In a speech on Friday, Israeli ambassador to the US Ron
Dermer said it was “not only dangerous but even immoral” to
remove Jews from the history of the Holocaust.
Kaine also linked
the Trump administration’s break with precedent to Trump counselor
Steve Bannon, the former publisher of Breitbart, a news site adopted
by the so-called “alt-right”.
“I think all of
these things are happening together,” Kaine said, “when you have
the chief political adviser in the White House, Steve Bannon, who is
connected with a news organisation that traffics in white supremacy
and antisemitism, and they put out a Holocaust statement that omits
any mention of Jews.”
In July, before
Bannon’s arrival as campaign chief executive, Trump tweeted an
image of Clinton superimposed over a pile of banknotes and a
six-pointed star. He denied the image was antisemitic, saying the
symbol was “a sheriff’s star” and blaming the media for the
controversy, but also deleted the original tweet and replaced the
star with a circle.
In August, Bannon
denied a claim by his ex-wife that he made antisemitic remarks
regarding his children’s school. In November, Senator Al Franken of
Minnesota accused the Trump campaign of putting out an ad that used
antisemitic tropes.
Fred Brown, a
spokesman for the Republican Jewish Coalition, said the group
believes Trump “holds in his heart the memory of the six million
victims of the Holocaust, and is committed not just to their memory,
but ensuring it never happens again”.
“The lack of a
direct statement about the suffering of the Jewish people during the
Holocaust was an unfortunate omission,” Brown said. “History
unambiguously shows the purpose of the Nazi’s final solution was
the extermination of the Jews of Europe. We hope, going forward, he
conveys those feelings when speaking about the Holocaust.”
Trump’s use of the
slogan “America First”, on the trail and in his inaugural
address, has also attracted criticism from Jewish groups, including
the Anti-Defamation League, which has noted the phrase’s origins
with an isolationist and antisemitic 1940s movement that sought to
avoid conflict with Nazi Germany.
Trump’s
son-in-law, White House adviser Jared Kushner, is Jewish and his
wife, Ivanka Trump, converted to Judaism when they married.
The executive order
halting the admission of refugees and banning travel from seven
Muslim-majority countries included an expression of intent to favour
in the future religious minorities from those countries.
In an interview with
the Christian Broadcasting Network broadcast on Saturday, Trump said
he would prioritise Christians.
“It’s a
religious test,” Kaine said on Sunday. “It imposes a different
burden on Muslims than others. And the irony is not lost on me that
it was issued the same day as the White House issued their Holocaust
Remembrance Day proclamation that, unlike any previous
administration, removed all reference to Jews.
“So you put a
religious test on Muslims and you try to scrub reference to Jews in
the Holocaust remembrance. This was horribly, horribly mishandled.”
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