The White House has defended its omission of Jews and antisemitism from a statement remembering the Holocaust by saying that Donald Trump’s administration “took into account all of those who suffered”.
On International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Friday, the White House made no mention of Jews, Judaism or the antisemitism that fueled Nazi Germany’s mass murder of six million Jews in the 1940s.
The head of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt, wondered aloud about the “puzzling and troubling” statement, and its break with the precedent.
The executive director of the Anne Frank Center, Steven Goldstein, similarly scolded the president: “How can you forget, Mr President, that six million Jews were murdered because they were Jews? You chose the vague phrase ‘innocent people.’ They were Jews, Mr President.”
White House representatives did not answer queries about the statement until Saturday, when spokeswoman Hope Hicks forwarded to CNN a link to a Huffington Post article about the millions of people who were killed by Nazis for their ethnicities, sexual orientation, politics or religious beliefs.
“Despite what the media reports, we are an incredibly inclusive group and we took into account all of those who suffered,” Hicks told CNN.
She did not answer a question about whether Trump did not want to offend people, saying only: “It was our honor to issue a statement in remembrance of this important day.”
In its original statement, the…