Holocaust Survivors Slam Arab Museum for Helen Thomas Statue
A noted group of Holocaust survivors is blasting the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn for financing a statue of journalist Helen Thomas to be placed in its building, saying it would tarnish its reputation.
The American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants, which represents about 80,000 families of Holocaust survivors in the U.S., said that honoring Thomas with a statue is immoral.
“The campaign to honor Helen Thomas with a statue is a moral taint on the Arab American National Museum,” said Elan Steinberg, vice president of the Holocaust group, American Gathering. “The Museum must understand that American values are at stake here. We would be as horrified as they would be if some bigot demanded that Arab-Americans get out of this country.”
Last week, the Free Press reported that the Arab-American museum had launched a campaign to raise the remaining $10,000 needed to finance a statue of Helen Thomas, the legendary journalist forced to resign after making anti-Israel remarks considered anti-Semitic.
Anan Ameri, director of the museum told the Free Press that “we disagree with” the comments that Thomas made about Israel, which were “uncalled for.” But “it was unfair to scratch a whole history … because of a statement she made.”
Thomas “spent her life … doing a lot of good things,” Ameri said.
“She contributed a lot,” Ameri added. Thomas “opened many, many doors for women in this country.”
But the Holocaust group said there should be no statue.
“Holocaust survivors and their families were deeply shocked by Helen Thomas’ comments,” Steinberg said. “Her monstrous call for Jews to go back to the places where we were gassed and burned were profoundly anti-American words of hate.”
Thomas was a pioneer for women in journalism and was a longtime White House reporter who covered 10 U.S. Presidents.
She resigned in June from Hearst Newspapers after saying that Israelis should “get the hell out of Palestine.”
Asked where they should go, Thomas said for them to “go home” to “Poland, Germany and America, and everywhere else,” according to a video.
Thomas came under fire and then apologized.
She turned 90 years old on Wednesday.
Niraj Warikoo
Detroit Free Press