WASHINGTON – FBI Director James Comey discussed those who participated in the Nazi atrocities during the Holocaust at the Anti-Defamation League’s annual conference on Monday afternoon. “Although the slaughter of the Holocaust was led by sick and evil people, those sick and evil leaders were joined by and followed by people who loved their families, took soup to sick neighbors, who went to Church, who gave to charity,” Comey told the ADL gathering. “Good people helped murder millions.”

Abe Foxman, former ADL National Director and now Director of Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, called Comey’s comments “extraordinary” in that they

Comey “understands what most people fail to comprehend about the Shoa – that six million Jews perished because the good people implemented Hitler’s Final Solution,” Foxman told Jewish Insider. “Germans and their accomplices, who loved their families and dogs, and religiously went to Church on Sunday, systematically murdered Jews because of anti-Semitic hatred preached and practiced for hundreds of years.”

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, of Simon Wiesenthal Center, said that while he understands the point Comey wanted to make, “to be clear, any German who participated in or abetted in any way Hitler’s Final Solution could no longer be considered ‘good people.’ By their words and deeds abetting genocide, they voided anything ‘good’ they had previously done.”

In his remarks, the top law enforcement officer added that in order to better understand humanity’s perils, the FBI requires officers and analysts to tour Washington’s Holocaust Museum in addition to studying about Martin Luther King Jr and the civil rights movement.

“I believe the Holocaust is the most significant event in human history. How could such a thing happen? How is that consistent in any way with the concept of a loving God?” Comey asked. “The answer for me is, I don’t know.”

“We do know why,” Foxman said, “Hate has consequences; it infects and eventually kills. That is the price of prejudice. And the Shoa was the price of anti-Semitic prejudice which is still alive today.”

During the first several months of the administration, the issue of the Holocaust has consistently dogged Trump’s presidency. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer argued that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad committed acts worse than Hitler while also referring to “Holocaust centers.” (Spicer later apologized). In a statement commemorating Holocaust Remembrance Day, the White House declined to include Jews, a strange omission, but furthered when they refused to admit any mistake.

The FBI director also noted that on his desk he keeps a 1963 memo from Director J. Edgar Hoover to Attorney General Robert Kennedy asking permission to wiretap Martin Luther King Jr. due to “communist influences.” Comey asserted that this letter was critical to remembering the dangers of unchecked law enforcement powers.