Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) is under fire after drawing a controversial comparison between President Trump’s immigration enforcement operations in his state and the experiences of Anne Frank during Nazi occupation, prompting a swift rebuke from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
During a Sunday press conference, Walz suggested that children in Minnesota are living in conditions comparable to those endured by the young Jewish diarist who hid from Nazi persecution during World War II.
“We have got children in Minnesota hiding in their houses, afraid to go outside,” Walz stated during the tense briefing. “Many of us grew up reading that story of Anne Frank.”
The Democratic governor then made his most striking claim. “Somebody’s going to write that children’s story about Minnesota,” he declared.
The Holocaust Memorial Museum responded with an unusually stern statement condemning the comparison, though it did not mention Walz by name.
“Anne Frank was targeted and murdered solely because she was Jewish,” the museum stated in its rebuke.
“Leaders making false equivalencies to her experience for political purposes is never acceptable. Despite tensions in Minneapolis, exploiting the Holocaust is deeply offensive, especially as antisemitism surges.”
Anne Frank spent over two years concealed in a secret annex during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.
Her diary, which documented her experiences in hiding, became one of the most widely read books in history after her death in a concentration camp.
The controversy comes as the Trump administration has deployed approximately 3,000 federal immigration personnel to Minneapolis as part of Operation Metro Surge, which launched last month.
The federal force significantly outnumbers the city’s police department, which has roughly 600 officers according to Mayor Jacob Frey.
On Monday, Resist the Mainstream reported that President Trump announced he is sending border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota to coordinate enforcement operations following recent unrest and the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
Trump and Walz also spoke by phone Monday to address the situation unfolding in Minnesota.
“Governor Tim Walz called me with the request to work together with respect to Minnesota. It was a very good call, and we, actually, seemed to be on a similar wavelength,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“He was happy that Tom Homan was going to Minnesota, and so am I!”
Walz later characterized the conversation as “productive” and stated that the president agreed to “look into reducing the number of federal agents” in his state.
The Holocaust Memorial Museum, situated on the National Mall in Washington, DC, operates as an independent institution funded through both government grants and private donations.
Sara Bloomfield has served as the museum’s director since 1999.
The New York Post reported that while the Trump administration has been pressuring federally operated museums in the nation’s capital to eliminate what it views as politically biased messaging and emphasize American history, these efforts have not apparently extended to the Holocaust Museum.
