Donald Duck comment on memorial criticized

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COLUMBUS, Ohio, April 5 (UPI) -- A former Ohio state legislator has angered Jews in the state by appearing to suggest that a Holocaust memorial is the equivalent of a Donald Duck monument.

Richard H. Finan, a former speaker of the state Assembly who now heads the Capital Square Review and Advisory Board, which is in charge of the statehouse grounds in Columbus. He was angry because Gov. John Kasich began an open push for a memorial honoring Ohio survivors of the Holocaust without submitting the plan to the board, The Columbus Dispatch reported.

"All one has to do now is go to the governor and say, 'I want a statue of Donald Duck on the Statehouse grounds' and if he gets convinced of it, boom!" Finan told reporters.

Joyce Garver Keller, the executive director of Ohio Jewish Communities, said the idea for a memorial came from Kasich, not from Jewish groups. She called Finan's comments "insensitive on so many levels."

Kasich signed a bill Friday that authorizes a memorial "to victims of the Holocaust and to the Ohioans who participated in the liberation of the death camps during World War II."