Whoopi Goldberg ignites criticism after saying the Holocaust 'isn't about race' on The View

The View cohost Whoopi Goldberg is facing a backlash after saying the Holocaust "isn't about race" on Monday's episode of the daytime talk show, including responses from the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League and the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and State Museum.

During a discussion about how a Tennessee school board banned Maus, the Pulitzer-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, citing profanity and nudity, Goldberg initially remarked that the Holocaust "is white people doing it to white people; y'all go fight amongst yourselves." Later in the segment she reiterated: "If you're going to do this, let's be truthful about it, because the Holocaust isn't about race. It's not about race."

Cohost Joy Behar cut in to point out that the Nazis saw Jewish people as "a different race," but Goldberg disagreed. "It's about man's inhumanity to man. That's what it's about," Goldberg said, which prompted the rest of the roundtable to attempt to point out the errors in her argument.

"But it's about white supremacy," cohost Ana Navarro said. "It's about going after Jews and Gypsies and Romas." Goldberg doubled down on how she saw it as "two white groups of people," while cohost Sara Haines countered that the Nazis "didn't see them as white." Behar added that Black people were targeted as well, but Goldberg insisted that her fellow panelists were "missing the point."

"The minute you turn it into race, it goes down this alley," Goldberg said. "Let's talk about it for what it is. It's how people treat each other. It's a problem. It doesn't matter if you are Black or white because Black, white, Jews, Italians, everybody eats each other. So is it: If you are uncomfortable if you hear about Maus, should you be worried? Should your child say, 'Oh my God, I wonder if that's me?' No. That's not what they're going to say. They're going to say, 'I don't want to be like that."

As the segment ended, Goldberg did agree with her cohosts that "most kids don't want to be cruel" and that learning about the Holocaust is necessary — "to learn about man's inhumanity to man, however it exposes itself."

After the episode aired, Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, called out Goldberg's comments as "dangerous."

"No @WhoopiGoldberg, the #Holocaust was about the Nazi's systematic annihilation of the Jewish people – who they deemed to be an inferior race," he tweeted. "They dehumanized them and used this racist propaganda to justify slaughtering 6 million Jews. Holocaust distortion is dangerous."

The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and State Museum, meanwhile, tweeted links to Goldberg of a "seven-chapter online course about the history of the #Holocaust."

And without mentioning Goldberg by name, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum tweeted, "Racism was central to Nazi ideology. Jews were not defined by religion, but by race. Nazi racist beliefs fueled genocide and mass murder."

Representatives for Goldberg and The View did not immediately respond to EW's request for comment. Watch the segment above.

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