Newly sworn-in Republican lawmaker condemned by Holocaust Museum after Hitler quote

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has condemned newly seated Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.) for saying earlier this week that Adolf Hitler was “right” about the value of influencing a nation’s youth.

Appearing at a Tuesday rally on Capitol Hill calling for the 2020 presidential election to be overturned, Miller said, “Hitler was right on one thing, that whoever has the youth has the future. Our children are being propagandized.”

The Holocaust Museum “unequivocally” condemned the remarks. 

“The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum unequivocally condemns any leader trying to advance a position by claiming Adolf Hitler was ‘right,’” the museum said in a statement. “Adolf Hitler’s Germany plunged Europe into the most destructive event in human history, World War II and the Holocaust resulting in the genocide of six million European Jews.”

Others were quick to call out Miller for the comments, including Holocaust survivor Irene Weiss.

“I implore our leaders and all Americans not to misuse this history — my history,” Weiss, a survivor of the Auschwitz death camp, said in the statement. “It minimizes the evil that was Nazism, dishonors the memory of the victims, and pains the survivors. We should be learning from history, not exploiting it.”

Miller’s fellow Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D), who is Jewish, also condemned Miller’s remarks.

“I think she should resign. She definitely should be condemned,” Schakowsky told the Chicago Sun-Times.

Numerous Twitter users pointed out the point Miller was attempting to convey is common enough that she could have invoked a figure other than the Nazi leader.

Whitney Houston also sang that the children are our future.

If what Mary Miller wanted to convey was her belief in young people, there were MANY other people not named Hitler who she could have said were right.

— Adam Rifkin (@ifindkarma) January 6, 2021

Honestly, if you want to make the banal point that youth are the future, you can find someone other than Hitler to quote. So the fact that you went out of your way to quote Hitler is a tell. https://t.co/BIpkYjDw65

— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) January 6, 2021