Letter to The Editor - It's time this sacred cow was laid to rest

To The Australian        Reactions to remarks by British eco-warrior Roger Hallam about the Holocaust seem excessive and unjustifiable ("Holocaust not unique: eco-warrior disowned", 22/11). His point that there have been a number of large-scale killings of peoples in history and that the Holocaust is another but not, in that context, unique, is surely correct. The scale and irrationality of subsequent attacks on him are extraordinary. My goodness, a rebuke from the German government and the withdrawal of the German version of his book, and all because of a sensible if controversial comment! German Greens co-leader Robert Habeck's claim that there must be no "downplaying of the Holocaust" is contemptible in a nation that routinely jails Holocaust revisionists and thus affronts disgracefully the vital principle of intellectual freedom. It's time this sacred cow was laid to rest.
  Nigel Jackson, Belgrave, Vic