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Good Morning Britain has apologised for their Holocaust Memorial Day coverage after they failed to mention that Jews were victims.
On the January 27 episode of the ITV daytime show Ranvir Singh was informing viewers of King Charles’ trip to former Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz–Birkenau to mark 80 years since its liberation.
‘Six million people were killed in concentration camps during the Second World War, as well as millions of others because they were Polish, disabled, gay, or belonged to another ethnic group,’ Ranvir stated within the report.
In the next day’s show, Ranvir, 47, acknowledged that they’d made a mistake by not mentioning that Jews were victims: ‘In yesterday’s news when we reported on the memorial events in Auschwitz, we said six million people were killed in the Holocaust but crucially failed to say they were Jewish. That was our mistake for which we apologise.’
The original segment was criticised for the exclusion of Jews, with the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) group calling out the show on X.
‘Jews. The word you’re looking for is ‘Jews’, not ‘people’,’ they began after quoting the original news report.
Ranvir Singh apologised on Good Morning Britain (Picture: GMB/ITV)
‘This truly beggars belief. This dire reporting is not only factually incorrect but erases Jews from a genocide in which six million Jewish men, women and children were slaughtered specifically because they were Jews. How is it possible, therefore, that on Holocaust Memorial Day of all days, @GMB manages to acknowledge several other groups but not Jews?
‘To make matters worse, there is no reference to Jewish people at all for over two minutes into this segment, and when there finally is one, it is only done once and in regard to former history students taking a tour of the Jewish quarter of Kraków.’ The report also included a section presented by Nick Dixon, who reported live from Auschwitz.
‘Additionally, there is bafflingly no utterance of the word “antisemitism” whatsoever. If this is intended to pay respect to the victims of Holocaust Memorial Day, it has failed abysmally and ignores the true nature of this horrific event. How on earth was this allowed to happen, @ITV? We demand an explanation.’
The original report aired on TV yesterday (Picture: ITV / GMB)
Many others echoed the anger calling the report ‘utterly awful’, ‘unforgivable’, ‘pathetic’ and ‘baffling’.
After the apology was aired, CAA posted a follow-up statement.
‘It is right that, following our post, @ITV has apologised for this scandalous blunder. But how did such an obvious mistake happen in the first place?’ they asked.
‘The irony of this sort of ‘forgetfulness’ on a day of remembrance is not lost on us.
‘Holocaust Memorial Day is first and foremost a day to memorialise the six million Jewish men, women and children murdered by gas and bullet by the Nazis and their collaborators.
‘Its principal lesson is the need to bravely combat antisemitism whenever it arises, including in our own time. Given that Britain is currently experiencing the worst antisemitism in living memory, that lesson is more important than ever. Why, then, does our society keep failing to learn it?’
King Charles joined other world leaders at a commemoration event marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau(Picture: Klaudia Radecka/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The annual event of Holocaust Memorial Day remembers the six million Jewish people murdered during the Holocaust, as well as the millions of other people killed under Nazi persecution. On January 27 1945 Auschwitz-Birkenau, the biggest Nazi death camp, was liberated by the Soviet Red Army.
The day also calls on people to remember those lost in the genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur, according to the official website.
The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust encouraged people across the UK to join in a ‘national moment’ by lighting candles and placing them in their windows at 8pm on Monday. Famous buildings and landmarks were also lit purple as a show of solidarity.
Good Morning Britain airs weekdays at 6am on ITV.
Metro has contacted ITV for comment.
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