Fox Host Slammed by Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial After Holocaust Remarks

The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum rebuked remarks about the Holocaust made by Fox News host Greg Gutfeld during a discussion about Florida's new slavery curriculum.

Fox News panelists on The Fivedebated Florida's new educational standards, which require middle schoolers to be taught that slaves learned skills they could use to their personal benefit. The curriculum has drawn backlash from educational and civil rights leaders, sparking debate about how the history of race and slavery should be taught to students. Vice President Kamala Harris has accused Florida education officials of gaslighting.

The Five co-host Jessica Tarlov defended Harris during Monday's episode, saying she is fundamentally uncomfortable with the idea of allowing middle schoolers to be taught that some enslaved people benefited from enslavement.

"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 you were hanging out in concentration camps, you learned a strong work ethic, right? Maybe you learned a new skill?" she said.

Gutfeld, another co-host of The Five, responded by saying that some scholars have made the case that individuals in concentration camps needed to develop skills to survive.

"Did you ever read Man's Search for Meaning? Vik Frankl talks about how you had to survive in a concentration camp by having skills. You had to be useful, utility. Utility kept you alive," he said.

He referred to the autobiography of Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist and survivor of the Holocaust, who detailed how he found personal meaning through his experiences in concentration camps.

His remarks drew rebuke from the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, which in a lengthy statement posted to Twitter on Tuesday, explained that "it is essential to contextualize" his remarks.

The statement notes that while "some Jews may have used their skills or usefulness to increase their chances of survival during the Holocaust," his remarks do not "represent the complex history of the genocide perpetrated by Nazi Germany," as "being 'useful' did not guarantee safety" of Jews during the Holocaust.

"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," the statement reads.

Concentration camps such as Treblinka or Sobibor had "no selections" for who was murdered, and "almost all deported Jews" were killed when they arrived at the concentration camps, according to the memorial.

"Being skilled or useful did not spare them from the horrors of the gas chambers," the statement reads. "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."

Newsweek reached out to Fox News via email for comment.

The White House also condemned Gutfeld's statement.

"What Fox News allowed to be said on their air yesterday—and has so far failed to condemn—is an obscenity," Deputy White House Press Secretary Andrew Bates told CNN. "In defending a horrid, dangerous, extreme lie that insults the memory of the millions of Americans who suffered from the evil of enslavement, a Fox News host told another horrid, dangerous and extreme lie that insults the memory of the millions of people who suffered from the evils of the Holocaust."