Re: “Commentary: Whoopi Goldberg got it all wrong on the Holocaust. But if she can learn, we all can” (Feb. 4):

Whoopi Goldberg got it right, in my opinion. She was not uninformed and she did not make a misstatement. She was co-hosting ‘The View” and she was giving her view.

In describing the atrocities of the Holocaust as “man’s inhumanity to … man,” Whoopi perfectly described it. By declaring the Holocaust to be racist, we get it wrong. The victims of the Holocaust who author Karin Klein mentions – Jewish people, the Roma, gay people, et alia – are not races.

Judaism is a religion, not a race. Treatment of Jewish people and these other populations has often been clearly prejudicial but not strictly racist. By characterizing the Holocaust as racist, we give credit to the Nazis, of all people, for defining what constitutes a race. They are a biased and hateful group who have absolutely and perfectly exemplified “man’s inhumanity to … man.” While actual racism is to be unequivocally rebuked, being inhumane to our fellow man is more profoundly uncivilized.

I stand with Whoopi.

Penny Conti
Falmouth

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