Dear Paul,

World War II produced tens of millions of victims.
Both the Nazis and the Communists committed unheard of
cruelties. Concentration camps - on both sides of the
front operated at a high fever pitch prior to and during
the war years.

As stated in "The New KGB" :

"There is no dispute about the enormity of Hitler's
Holocaust. But it is equally important to be as aware of the
accomplishments of the Soviet secret police, which brought death
to at least four times as many Russians, Poles, Jews, Latvians,
Lithuanians, Estonians, Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, Gypsies, and
Romanians as Hitler did in his eleven years as a leader of the
'1,000-year Reich."

While half of the criminals, the Nazis, have been pursued all
over the world for their crimes, the other half, the communist
criminals, were allowed to go free.

They were in effect given tacit permission to continue the
operation of their concentration camps, to expand their
draconian systems to include psychiatric
wards, thereby raising torture, suppression, and murder to
a science. The fact that the process persisted was vividly
disclosed to the free world by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn in
his book, "The Gulag Archipelago."

There have been so many movies, books, and personal accounts on
the Holocaust. TV programs even today - consistently show programs
on the evils of what the Nazis did.
"The Diary of Anne Frank" is read in schools. Jewish Museum
visits are a part of the school curriculum.

Anti-Semitism in Australia? And the claim that people
don't know about the Holocaust? I'm not sure how accurate
those claims are. Our governments have always supported
Israel. The Jewish communities are very strong in this
country and they do have great influence. I'm sure that
we shall continue to be made aware of what they
have gone through.

Hopefully, the Palestinians will one day also find political
support and will be given the resources to educate the public
in order to find a peaceful resolution to the cruelty imposed
against them. And that people in this country will support
their efforts.

Dear Josephus,

In Israel is a hall of remembrance for those who helped the Jews during the Holocaust. There are people of many nations and many religions there including both Christians and Muslims. Every nation contains good and bad people. Every religion contains good and bad people, No nation or religion has a monopoly on virtue or vice.

The three major founders of Protestantism are Martin Luther who was a brilliant man and a Jew hater, John Calvin who was a brilliant man and set up a police state in Geneva which burned people at the stake and Henry VII, a king who couldn't get a divorce from the Catholic Church. In spite of the sleaziness of its founders there are many good and decent Protestants as there are good and decent people in all religions.

Yet you seem to hate many of those who don't belong to your religion. Jesus, a wise Jew, is quoted in the Bible, "How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye." - Matthew 7:4-5

Josephus, take those words to heart and rid yourself of hate for people who don't believe as you do.

Rejecting different ideas people hold is not hate but acting to deliberately injure people demonstrates hate.

Dear Josephus,

It seems that you would do more than just reject the ideas of another religion. You advocated banning their sacred literature. Would you accept it if your sacred literature were banned? Section 116 of the Australian Constitution states:

The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.

Banning the Koran which you advocated would interfere with the free exercise of Islam, and that would be a violation of the Australian Constitution.

I doubt very much than only 25% don't know about the Holocaust. I would think that very few people under 40-50 years of age would know about it - or much else about anything at all before they were born.

I am amused that a Green has brought up anti-Semitism, given that it has been established that the Greens party is one of the leading lights in anti-Semitism. Since the demise of 1930s National Socialism, the Left has assumed the mantle of Jew hatred. Jew hatred is very popular among the lefties. All religions are hated by the left - apart from Islam, which suits their intolerant totalitarianism. Which reminds me: how will they handle the news about the Muslim soccer player refusing to wear the Gay Pride guernsey. Bet she gets off much lighter than Christian rugby player.

And parents, not schools, should be teaching their children right and wrong. Schools, public ones in particular, can't even teach the basic three Rs these days, let alone honest history.

If we're going to teach history as part of our school
curriculum it should all be taught - not just certain
selective aspects. But of course is there such a thing
as objective history? I guess it all depends on who's
doing the writing.