Whoopi Goldberg’s ‘View’ co-hosts are mum, but this Holocaust survivor wants to talk
Social media is rallying to get an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor on “The View” after co-host Whoopi Goldberg was suspended from the show for her remarks on the genocide.
After Goldberg said on Monday’s episode of “The View” that the Holocaust was “not about race,” Lucy Lipiner — a Jewish author whose family fled Poland at the beginning of World War II — offered via Twitter to engage in a “meaningful conversation” with Goldberg on the daytime talk series.
On Tuesday, ABC News suspended Goldberg for two weeks and urged her “to take time to reflect and learn about the impact of her comments” after she publicly apologized for them.
During Wednesday’s installment of “The View,” Goldberg’s co-panelists did not discuss the situation beyond confirming that the comedian will return to the show in a couple of weeks.
ABC News is suspending “The View” moderator Whoopi Goldberg over erroneous remarks she made on the program about the Holocaust.
“Hi @WhoopiGoldberg,” Lipiner tweeted Monday. “My family was killed for not being white. Hitler & Nazis NEEDED to exterminate Jews because we weren’t ‘white enough’ for them. I’m happy to meet and educate you about what really happened in the Holocaust.”
Less than an hour later, Lipiner addressed a second tweet to “The View”:
“I am a Holocaust survivor in NYC,” she wrote. “I might be 88-years-old but I have the energy to come on your show and talk to @WhoopiGoldberg and all the girls about the Holocaust. I think we can have a meaningful conversation together and heal wounds. DM me! Love, Lucy.”
Although Lipiner’s offer landed before Goldberg’s suspension, her words have gone viral with support from many who would still like to hear her perspective on “The View.” Collectively, her tweets have amassed more than 37,000 likes.
The Oscar-winning actor said she was sorry for saying the Nazis’ genocidal policies were ‘not about race’ but about ‘man’s inhumanity to ... man.’
“@LucyLipiner As the daughter of a holocaust survivor… my mom who is deceased but was born in Berlin and survived Auschwitz I THANK you for speaking out and offering your help,” tweeted @MargeStein1 on Wednesday. “If you are able mention reparations by the Germans. Most Americans know nothing about this.”
“Let’s use the controversy over @WhoopiGoldberg comments to educate people about the Holocaust,” tweeted @mabramson. “@abc @TheView — Please have @LucyLipiner & other survivors on the show.”
Shortly after she reached out to “The View,” Lipiner tweeted a photo of her Jewish preschool class: “Everyone but me (and my sister) in this photo died in Auschwitz,” she wrote.
A representative for “The View” did not immediately respond Wednesday to an inquiry from The Times.
On Monday, Goldberg extended her “sincerest apologies” and professed her loyalty to “the Jewish people around the world.”
“On today’s show, I said the Holocaust ‘is not about race, but about man’s inhumanity to man,’” Goldberg said in a statement.
Fewer than 2,000 Auschwitz survivors are still alive. One is returning to Poland from Southern California for the fourth time.
“I should have said it is about both. As Jonathan Greenblatt from the Anti-Defamation League shared, ‘The Holocaust was about the [Nazis’] systematic annihilation of the Jewish people — who they deemed to be an inferior race.’ I stand corrected.”
Goldberg’s Holocaust remarks came during a “View” discussion about a Tennessee school board’s ban of “Maus,” a graphic novel about Nazi death camps during World War II. The board cited nudity and profanity as justification for banning the book, which has won several literary awards, including a Pulitzer Prize.
“The ban of ‘Maus’ by Pulitzer Prize winner Art Spiegelman is disgraceful + antisemitic,” Lipiner tweeted last week. “I survived the Holocaust when I was 6 years old. [Eighth] grade students can and need to learn about Holocaust. That’s how such EVIL will never happen again to any people, any nation!”
Sales of Art Spiegelman’s ‘Maus,’ the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel on the Holocaust, have risen after a Tennessee school board banned it this month.
On Wednesday, “Maus” author Art Spiegelman, whose two editions of “Maus” are now on Amazon’s bestsellers list, opposed Goldberg’s suspension.
“I believe she should have been left on TV, especially after she apologized,” Spiegelman said in an interview with “Democracy Now!”
“In this age, we’re all addled — including Whoopi Goldberg — and I think she had conflicting images of where we’re at right now, in the sense that somehow us Jews have become honorary white in this moment. And that allowed her to get a bit confused about where the issues really are.”
Times staff writer Stephen Battaglio contributed to this report.
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