Auschwitz Museum Hits Fox’s Greg Gutfeld For ‘Oversimplified’ Holocaust Remark in Defense of Florida Slavery Curriculum

Fox News host Greg Gutfeld drew a rebuke from the Auschwitz Museum, among others, for a comment he made to colleague Jessica Tarlov about the Holocaust — in defense of the controversial new Florida slavery curriculum.

Tarlov and her co-hosts debated the newly-approved Florida curriculum on Black history — which includes teaching that “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit”  — on Monday’s edition of Fox News Channel’s The Five.

That debate included this stunning exchange in which Tarlov — who is Jewish — asks a hypothetical analogizing the Florida standards to a similar premise about the millions slaughtered by the Nazis and Gutfeld had a quick reply:

JESSICA TARLOV: I do think that she read the whole thing, and I think that it’s an incredibly complex piece when you look at it, 191 passages. You have some good… And frankly, I’m just fundamentally uncomfortable with the sentence that Blacks benefited at all from this. And. You know, it made me think of someone. Obviously, I’m not Black, but I’m Jewish. Would someone say about the Holocaust, for instance, that there were some benefits for Jews? Right? While they were hanging out in concentration camps. You learned a strong work ethic, right? Maybe you learned a new skill.

GREG GUTFELD: Did you ever read ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’? Vik Frankel talks about how you had to survive in a concentration camp by having skills. You had to be useful. Utility, utility kept you alive!

The remark drew a lengthy rebuke from the Auschwitz Museum on Twitter:

While it is true that some Jews may have used their skills or usefulness to increase their chances of survival during the Holocaust, it is essential to contextualize this statement properly and understand that it does not represent the complex history of the genocide perpetrated by Nazi Germany.

Viktor Frankl’s observation about the specific situation in Auschwitz, which at some point became a camp that connected the functions of a concentration camp and extermination center and where deported Jews went through the selection process, highlights how some Jews became registered prisoners and might have used their skills to gain favor or prolong their lives in that particular setting. Yet, it never gave them complete protection.

However, we must not overlook the larger picture of the Holocaust. Nazi Germany’s ultimate goal was to exterminate all the people it considered Jews (Nazis created their racial definition of a Jewish person). Millions of Jews were brutally murdered in execution sites, mainly across the east of occupied Europe, with entire communities wiped out regardless of their usefulness or contributions to society. While some of the ghettos seemed to have the goal of being productive and Jews were used as slave labor there, being “useful” did not guarantee safety, as the Nazis eventually decided to liquidate them, leading to the murder of those considered valuable as well.

There were no selections in extermination camps, such as Treblinka or Sobibor, and almost all deported Jews were murdered upon arrival, irrespective of any perceived usefulness. Being skilled or useful did not spare them from the horrors of the gas chambers.

Furthermore, during the final stages of the Holocaust, as the Nazi system was collapsing, concentration camp prisoners were evacuated to shrinking camp systems, resulting in the death of many. In these circumstances, being useful did not offer protection either.

Therefore, while it is accurate to acknowledge that some Jews may have survived temporarily due to their perceived usefulness, it is crucial to remember that the Holocaust was a systematic genocide with the ultimate aim of exterminating the entire Jewish population. It would be more appropriate to say that some Jews survived the Holocaust because they were considered temporarily useful, and the circumstances of the Nazi regime’s collapse prevented their murder. We should avoid such oversimplifications in talking about this complex tragic story.

Watch above via Fox News Channel’s The Five.