Today, the White House released its official statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, where it mentions the plight of the Jewish people under Nazi Germany.
You might think that’s a perfectly normal thing to do, except it’s a first for this administration. That’s because—and you can be forgiven for forgetting this in a year of non-stop scandals—its statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day last year did not mention Jews. It instead read, “It is with a heavy heart and somber mind that we remember and honor the victims, survivors, heroes of the Holocaust.”
That’s because, according to the White House, it did not want to minimize the suffering of others in Hitler’s campaign against the Jewish people.
“[Despite] what the media reports, we are an incredibly inclusive group and we took into account all of those who suffered,” Hope Hicks told CNN during the controversy. However, outrage continued, with Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) saying it went as far as “Holocaust denial.”
This year’s statement is much clearer.
“Tomorrow marks the 73rd anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Nazi death and concentration camp in Poland. We take this opportunity to recall the Nazis’ systematic persecution and brutal murder of six million Jewish people.”
The Trump administration had a perpetually fraught relationship with Nazis in its first year, but if this statement is any indication, 2018 may be … slightly better?