Trump White House erases Jews from Holocaust

Engaging in what many would call Holocaust Denialism, the Trump White House on Friday celebrated Holocaust Remembrance Day with a single tweet from Donald Trump, linking to a statement that didn’t mention Jews, or any other victims of Holocaust.

When asked later why the White House forget to mention Jews in a statement purportedly remembering the Holocaust, White House spokesperson Hope Hicks doubled down and suggested that the Holocaust was about more than Jews, so by not associating Jews with the Holocaust the White House was in fact being more “inclusive.”

Here’s the White House statement:

Statement by the President on International Holocaust Remembrance Day

“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.

“Yet, we know that in the darkest hours of humanity, light shines the brightest.‎ As we remember those who died, we are deeply grateful to those who risked their lives to save the innocent.

“In the name of the perished, I pledge to do everything in my power throughout my Presidency, and my life, to ensure that the forces of evil never again defeat the powers of good. Together, we will make love and tolerance prevalent throughout the world.”

And while Hopes is technically correct that Hitler’s victims included gays, people with disabilities, Roma, communists and many more, the lion’s share of the Nazis’ victims were Jews. Not to mention, how does it honor “all” the victims of the Holocaust by refusing to mention any of them? The White House statement didn’t mention the other victims either. No mention of gays, prostitutes, Roma, communists, people with disabilities — nobody.

Erasing the victims of the Holocaust is not inclusive. That’s Holocaust revisionism. 

Asked about the White House explanation that the President didn’t want to exclude any of the other groups Nazis killed by specifically mentioning Jews, Greenblatt told CNN that the United Nations established International Holocaust Remembrance Day not only because of Holocaust denial but also because so many countries — Iran, Russia, Poland, and Hungary, for example — specifically refuse to acknowledge Hitler’s attempt to exterminate Jews, “opting instead to talk about generic suffering rather than recognizing this catastrophic incident for what is was: the intended genocide of the Jewish people.”

And that’s what Trump did on Friday. Now, keep in mind that Trump’s top strategy aide in the White House, Steve Bannon, is at best a neo-Nazi enabler. Bannon, who up until this past summer ran the far-right Web site Breitbart, bragged a few months ago that Breitbart was “the platform of the Alt Right.” The Alt Right is a hipster collection of white supremacists and neo-Nazis. Bannon was bragging that he was running a news site catering to racists and Nazis. And now the Trump White House is practicing Holocaust revisionism, and doing it on the same day that it announces a ban on Muslim refugees.