Holocaust Day: A fitting memorial - or a mistake?

I LISTENED to the radio and heard experts trying to compare our tragedy with Kosovo. I don't think they appreciate the full horror. I'm not saying that Kosovo or anywhere else was any less a holocaust but nowhere else did they have crematoriums. I think there should be something to remember something so unique.
-- Aron Zylberszac, 72, inmate of Auschwitz and Buchenwald

It is an excellent idea but not without its sensitivities. There is a whole issue about whose death you are remembering, which involves comparing the Nazi period to what happened in Rwanda and Kosovo. But this may well prove to be a focus for education, so I would support it.
-- Prof Christine King, vice-chancellor of Staffordshire University and historian of Third Reich

That the Holocaust is striking and important can hardly be doubted. That it stands out above all others is more questionable because, unfortunately, the world in general, and this century in particular, has many contestants for the title.

Those who have spoken in favour of the proposal, including the Prime Minister, have emphasised how inclusive it is meant to be -- to record and to draw attention to all this century's genocides. I fear they are greatly mistaken. It is a matter of deep shame that Western nations give so little attention to the Cambodian killing fields and Rwanda; it is arguable, however, that it is precisely the repeated emphasis which Europe puts on the Holocaust that worked as a contributory factor in this.

But besides, even if I am wrong, what is the point of such a day? The suggestion has all the appearance of yet another futile attempt to find a secular substitute for an essentially religious idea -- a day of prayer and fasting.
-- Gordon Graham, Regius Professor of Moral Philosophy, University of Aberdeen