WASHINGTON D.C. (JNS.org) — The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum expressed “deep alarm” over the “hateful rhetoric” at an alt-right white nationalist conference held just blocks away from the museum in Washington, D.C.
More than 200 people gathered at the Ronald Reagan Building Nov. 19 for the annual conference of the National Policy Institute, which describes itself as “an independent organization dedicated to the heritage, identity and future of people of European descent in the United States, and around the world.”
At the conference, National Policy Institute leader Richard Spencer, who has popularized the term “alt-right” to describe that movement, made several direct and indirect references to Jews and other minorities, often alluding to Nazism, while also speaking in German to quote Nazi propaganda and referring to the mainstream media, the Atlantic reported. A video capturing the speech shows Spencer saying, “Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory.”
“America was, until this past generation, a white country designed for ourselves and our posterity,” Spencer said. “It is our creation, it is our inheritance and it belongs to us.”
The Holocaust museum noted that “the statement that white people face a choice of ‘conquer or die’ closely echoes Adolf Hitler’s view of Jews and that history is a racial struggle for survival. The Holocaust did not begin with killing; it began with words.”
The museum said it “calls on all American citizens, our religious and civic leaders, and the leadership of all branches of the government to confront racist thinking and divisive hateful speech.”
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