President Donald Trump’s administration marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Tuesday, reflecting on the genocide committed by Nazi Germany during World War II.
‘Today, we pay respect to the blessed memories of the millions of Jewish people, who were murdered at the hands of the Nazi Regime and its collaborators during the Holocaust— as well as the Slavs and the Roma, people with disabilities, religious leaders, persons targeted based on their sexual orientation, and political prisoners who were also targeted for systematic slaughter,’ Trump said in a statement.
‘On January 27, 1945, 81 years ago today, Allied forces liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Nazi Regime’s largest concentration and death camp in World War II, where over one million people were marched to their senseless deaths,’ the presidential message released by the White House noted.
Trump noted that since returning to the presidency last year he has sought to use the federal government to battle antisemitism.
‘After I took office as the 47th President of the United States, I proudly made it this administration’s priority directing the Federal Government to use all appropriate legal tools to combat the scourge of antisemitism. My Administration will remain a steadfast and unequivocal champion for Jewish Americans and the God-given right of every American to practice their faith freely, openly, and without fear,’ he asserted.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio also addressed the grim historical record in a statement on Tuesday.
‘Today, the United States joins countries around the world in remembering the six million Jews who were systematically murdered in the Holocaust, as well as the millions of others the Nazis marked for persecution and mass murder. As we commemorate the liberation of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, we reaffirm a solemn and moral truth: all human beings are valuable and endowed by their Creator with inherent dignity and certain unalienable rights,’ he said in the statement.
‘This enduring commitment, expressed in our annual commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, reflects our resolve, in the words of President Trump, to ‘build a society that always values the sanctity of every human life and the dignity of every faith.’ The United States will always counter antisemitism worldwide, champion justice for Holocaust survivors and heirs, and defend the integrity of Holocaust memory,’ he noted.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz earned backlash for remarks he made on Sunday likening the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration to the tragic life of Anne Frank, a Jewish teenager who authored a diary detailing her experience in hiding during World War II.
‘We have got children in Minnesota hiding in their houses, afraid to go outside. Many of us grew up reading that story of Anne Frank. Somebody’s gonna write that children’s story about Minnesota,’ Walz said.
He made the comments on Sunday after an adult U.S. citizen, Alex Pretti, was fatally shot by a federal agent in the state on Saturday.
Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, the State Department special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, staunchly objected to the Anne Frank comparison.
‘Ignorance like this cheapens the horror of the Holocaust. Anne Frank was in Amsterdam legally and abided by Dutch law. She was hauled off to a death camp because of her race and religion. Her story has nothing to do with the illegal immigration, fraud, and lawlessness plaguing Minnesota today,’ Kaploun wrote in a Monday post on X. ‘Our brave law enforcement should be commended, not tarred with this historically illiterate and antisemitic comparison.’
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum declared in a post on Monday, ‘Anne Frank was targeted and murdered solely because she was Jewish. Leaders making false equivalencies to her experience for political purposes is never acceptable. Despite tensions in Minneapolis, exploiting the Holocaust is deeply offensive, especially as antisemitism surges.’