Whoopi Goldberg draws backlash after false Holocaust comments

Chief executive of Anti-Defamation League calls The View co-host's remark's 'deeply offensive'

US comedian, actress and TV host Whoopi Goldberg. AFP

US comedian Whoopi Goldberg faced backlash on Tuesday for falsely suggesting that the Holocaust was not “about race”.

In an interview with the Sunday Times published at the weekend, Goldberg said: “Remember who they were killing first. They were not killing racial; they were killing physical.

"They were killing people they considered to be mentally defective. And then they made this decision."

The interviewer fought against her claims, telling of how Nazis measured facial features of Jews to “prove” they were of another race.

Goldberg replied: “They did that to black people too. But it doesn’t change the fact that you could not tell a Jew on a street.

“You could find me. You couldn’t find them. That was the point I was making.”

Goldberg previously faced condemnation for similar remarks on the Holocaust this year, when she said the Nazi regime's actions were “white on white” violence.

Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, said the TV personality's repeated comments were “deeply offensive and ignorant”, and called on Goldberg to apologise and educate herself.

“When she made similar comments earlier this year, we explained how the Nazi regime was inherently racist,” Mr Greenblatt said.

He said Nazi doctors used baseless scientific theories to justify anti-Semitic “race laws”.

“Additionally, Whoopi’s comments show a complete lack of awareness of the multi-ethnic, multi-racial make-up of the Jewish community,” Mr Greenblatt said.

Goldberg was suspended by The View, a talk show on ABC for which she is co-host, after the remarks she made earlier this year.

The National contacted ABC for comment.

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