Whoopi Goldberg has apologized for saying that the Holocaust was "not about race" during a recent episode of The View.
The 66-year-old actress and television personality received instant pushback from her co-hosts, as well as from the Anti-Defamation League, the Auschwitz Memorial, and the Holocaust Museum.
Goldberg - who has been on the ABC talk show since 2007 - argued that the Holocaust was between "two white groups of people" and about "man's inhumanity to man".
Six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust by the Nazi party, who believed themselves to be part of an Aryan master race.
Goldberg's comments were sparked by a discussion about Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel Maus, which is about Nazi death camps and has been controversially banned by a Tennessee school board.
Officials from the board said the book was banned because of nudity, profanity, and scenes of suicide unsuitable to young teenagers.
"If you're going to do this, then let’s be truthful about it. Because the Holocaust isn’t about race. No, it’s not about race," Goldberg told her co-hosts insistently.
"Then what was it about?" asked co-host Joy Behar.
"Man's inhumanity to man," Goldberg replied.
Another co-host Ana Navarro again tried to point out Goldberg's error, saying: "But it's about white supremacy. It's about going after Jews and Gypsies and Roma."
"But these are two white groups of people," said Goldberg.
Yet another co-host - Sara Haines - stepped in and pointed out that the Nazis didn't see them as white.
"But you're missing the point!" Goldberg insisted, saying: "The minute you turn it into race, it goes down this alley. Let's talk about it for what it is. It's how people treat each other. It's a problem."
She then signaled to someone behind the camera and the show cut to an ad break.
Unsurprisingly, Goldberg's words were not well received, and the Oscar-winner faced immediate backlash.
"Racism was central to Nazi ideology. Jews were not defined by religion, but by race. Nazi racist beliefs fueled genocide and mass murder," the U.S Holocaust Museum tweeted.
The Auschwitz Memorial tagged Goldberg in a seven-chapter online course about the history of the Holocaust and posted a chart outlining the Nazi's "pseudo-scientific division of people into races, forming a basis for the racial policies of Nazi Germany."
It didn't take long for Goldberg to reply. The Sister Act star took to Twitter last night to express her "sincerest apologies".
"On today’s show. I said the Holocaust 'is not about race, but about man’s inhumanity to man.' I should have said it is about both," she wrote, before quoting Jonathan Greenblatt's words about the horrific persecution of Jews by those considering them "an inferior race."
"I stand corrected," she added.
"The Jewish people around the world have always had my support and that will never waiver. I’m sorry for the hurt I have caused," the TV host concluded, before signing off: "Written with my sincerest apologies."