considered Jews a race, they are an ethnicity as well as a religious group largely due to the rule in Judaism that anyone with a Jewish mother is a Jew. While Judaism does accept converts, and Jews can be black, white, Middle Eastern, or Asian, 2000 years of persecution and segregation in Europe created a separate culture and identity for Jews. The hereditary element of Nazi anti Semitic laws included counting anyone with just one Jewish grandparent as Jewish. It also included all Jews regardless of whether they practiced the Jewish faith or whether or not they had converted to Christianity.
By using biological identity for Jews, Nazis made it clear that they considered Jews to be primarily an ethnic or racial group. They considered Jews to be genetically inferior and "foreigners" who were not fit to be counted as German citizens.
The national policy of Nazi Germany was formed to the degree of conferences and laws specifically targeting Jews for their identity. The inclusion of communists, any sexual identity besides heterosexuality, and physical and mental disorders was part of the view that "inferiors," or "undesirables" polluted the gene pool of Germans.
I am not Jewish. But, I have learned about Nazi treatment of and attitudes toward Jews, Poles, communists, various gender IDs, and ill people from the many books and movies about Nazi Germany and WWII.
The OP is correct, IMO, in saying that Whoopi was not knowledgeable enough about Nazi Germany to make the statement that she did. She admits that herself, to her credit. She gave the most sincere and prompt apology that I have heard in a long time.
African Americans have been dealing with racial discrimination in the US for 5 centuries and it is still ongoing. It includes but is not limited to segregation, stereotyping, attitudes of inferiority toward them, murders with impunity, large slaughters with impunity, threats and intimidation, and systemic racism from schools to banks to police departments. Dealing with those things constantly in US society (and abroad), can leave people unaware of similar discriminations of others because so much of their time and energy become focused by necessity on their own issues.
I once worked with an AA woman who was confused enough about Jews and Nazi Germany that she believed that the medical experiments on Jews committed by Nazis were a Nazi policy of making Jews into the master race. When I tried to explain what it was about, she accused me of not knowing the facts, just like I would not know any AA names beyond Martin Luther King, Jr. and Michael Jackson. Of course that was not true, but I got through to her by asking what Native American people she knew about besides Pocahontas and Sacajawea. I am not Native, but one of my grandmothers was.
We should not make injustice toward any group of people a matter of competition over who suffered or still suffers most or has the most well known people. We need to learn about groups outside of our own and be united in acknowledging and fighting any injustice to any people for any reason/excuse.
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