Anne Frank Center demands apology from Tim Allen
Tim Allen’s controversial comments comparing being a conservative in Hollywood to living in 1930s Germany has resulted in a strong condemnation and demand for an apology from the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect.
Appearing Thursday on Jimmy Kimmel Live, the Last Man Standing star discussed attending Donald Trump’s inauguration and the political climate he thinks conservatives in his industry live in. “You get beat up if don’t believe what everybody believes,” he said. “This is like ’30s Germany.”
Offended by the “deeply offensive characterization,” the Anne Frank Center has called for Allen to apologize.
“Tim, have you lost your mind?” said Steven Goldstein, the center’s executive director in a statement. “No one in Hollywood today is subjecting you or anyone else to what the Nazis imposed on Jews in the 1930s – the world’s most evil program of dehumanization, imprisonment and mass brutality, implemented by an entire national government, as the prelude for the genocide of nearly an entire people.”
Goldstein continued, “Sorry, Tim, that’s just not the same as getting turned down for a movie role. It’s time for you to leave your bubble to apologize to the Jewish people and, to be sure, the other peoples also targeted by the Nazis.”
A representative for Allen did not immediately respond to EW’s request for comment.
The mission of the organization, which is named after the young Jewish girl who kept a now published diary while hiding from the Nazis, is to call out “prejudice.” The group also “counters discrimination and advocates for the kinder and fairer world of which Anne Frank dreamed.”
