Trump’s Holocaust Remembrance Day statement condemns murder of Jews
President Trump on Friday marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day by mourning the 6 million Jews killed in the Nazi genocide.
“We take this opportunity to recall the Nazis’ systematic persecution and brutal murder of six million Jewish people,” Trump said in a statement. “On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we acknowledge this dark stain on human history and vow to never let it happen again.”
It’s a change from Trump’s official statement last year, which made no mention of Jews or anti-Semitism.
The omission in 2017 angered Jewish groups, which called it a troubling distortion of the history of the Holocaust. It also fueled accusations that Trump has not done enough to speak out against racism and anti-Semitism.{mosads}
The White House defended the decision at the time, saying Jews were left out of the statement because other groups were also targeted by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
“Despite what the media reports, we are an incredibly inclusive group and we took into account all of those who suffered,” White House communications director Hope Hicks told CNN last year.
The White House changed its approach this year.
In addition to acknowledging the Nazis’ systematic murder of the Jews, Trump condemned their enslavement and killing of “millions of Slavs, Roma, gays, people with disabilities, priests and religious leaders, and others who courageously opposed their brutal regime.”
“Every generation must learn and apply the lessons of the Holocaust to prevent new horrors against humanity from occurring,” Trump said. “As I have said: ‘We will stamp out prejudice. We will condemn hatred. We will bear witness, and we will act.’”
International Holocaust Remembrance Day falls each year on Jan. 27, the day the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and death camps were liberated.
A study released by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in November found that anti-Semitic incidents have surged 67 percent nationwide since 2016.
“We are deeply troubled by the rising number of anti-Semitic incidents, bullying, and hate in our nation’s schools and we don’t think the statistics paint a full picture of what is happening,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and national director of the ADL.