A woman bows her head in the Hall of Remembrance at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on May 2 in Washington, DC | Getty Holocaust Museum condemns neo-Nazi conference

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on Monday condemned the “hateful rhetoric” espoused at a white nationalist conference that took place in Washington, D.C., over the weekend.

“The Holocaust did not begin with killing; it began with words,” the museum warned in a statement. “The Museum calls on all American citizens, our religious and civic leaders, and the leadership of all branches of government to confront racist thinking and divisive hateful speech.”


The statement noted that the conference was held at the Ronald Reagan Building, "just blocks from the Museum.”

Neo-Nazi leader Richard Spencer headlined the Saturday conference, which was sponsored by his white nationalist think tank, the National Policy Institute. He greeted the attendees with a tribute to President-elect Donald Trump, shouting “Hail Trump! Hail victory!” from the stage before gesturing a Nazi salute.

The Atlantic published video of the 30-minute speech, which took place after most reporters had departed. The magazine noted that Spencer broke into German to attack the “Lügenpresse,” or "lying press," a term used by Nazis to describe the media.

Spencer “made several direct and indirect references to Jews and other minorities, often alluding to Nazism,” the museum's statement noted. “He spoke in German to quote Nazi propaganda and refer to the mainstream media. He implied that the media was protecting Jewish interests and said, ‘One wonders if these people are people at all?’”

Spencer also claimed that America belongs to white people, who he suggested are faced with the decision to either “conquer or die.” The latter statement, the museum said, “closely echoes Adolf Hitler’s view of Jews and that history is a racial struggle for survival.”

The museum cast the targeting of Jews as “central to Nazi racist ideology,” reminding people that Germans tried to kill every man, woman and child who was Jewish, resulting in the deaths of more than 6 million Jews and millions of others by the end of World War II.

Spencer had his Twitter account suspended last week along with other prominent white supremacists on the social media platform. He told The Daily Caller, “Twitter is trying to airbrush the alt-right out of existence,” using a term that has often been used as a euphemism for neo-Nazis.