The Anti-Defamation League issued a statement today rebuking Glenn Beck for making the false smear that philanthropist George Soros helped “send the Jews to the death camps.” Beck also said last week that Soros “saw people into gas chambers.”

From the ADL's statement:

On his November 10 radio show, Beck described how Soros, who was born in Hungary to Orthodox Jewish parents, “used to go around with this anti-Semite and deliver papers to the Jews and confiscate their property and then ship them off. And George Soros was part of it. He would help confiscate the stuff. It was frightening. Here's a Jewish boy helping send the Jews to the death camps.”

Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director and a Holocaust survivor, issued the following statement:

Glenn Beck's description of George Soros' actions during the Holocaust is completely inappropriate, offensive and over the top. For a political commentator or entertainer to have the audacity to say inaccurately that there's a Jewish boy sending Jews to death camps, as part of a broader assault on Mr. Soros, that's horrific.

While I, too, may disagree with many of Soros' views and analysis on the issues, to bring in this kind of innuendo about his past is unacceptable. To hold a young boy responsible for what was going on around him during the Holocaust as part of a larger effort to denigrate the man is repugnant.

The Holocaust was a horrific time, and many people had to make excruciating choices to ensure their survival. George Soros has been forthright about his childhood experiences and his family's history, and there the matter should rest.