as an amateur historian and contrary to CBC & Wendy, I don’t believe that “there are words that should never be used”

I was horrified into thinking that, despite that the PM, that Wendy Mesley had actually used the “W” word - you know WORTMAN...

Pictures ?

That’s a far different story.

Since my book on penicillin involves contrasts fatally-ill New York Jews being cured by a dying doctor with healthy East European Jews being murdered by doctors, I have to face the fact that in those infamous Bloodlands, most of WWII’s deaths occurred, and in unbelievably cruel ways.

I can’t stomach using any violent images - and my book is filled with images ordinarily - in these sections.

Words, being at second hand, can be potentially softer.

But I won’t lie or re-write history.

If I describe the deeper implications of Hitler literally saying (& thinking) of Jews as acting actually like “fungus”  to feed upon the volk state to explain why he wanted even baby Jewish children killed, I will do so.

I can not simply say ‘Hitler insulted the Jews by calling them the F-word’ : to say his use of this word was simply as a casual ‘insult’ is bathetic.

Similarly to try and describe the subtle racism in 1940s whites even thinking ‘nigra’ was a real improvement on an earlier N-word allows us to see the shift from open racism to hidden racism in America.

To dissect the minds of haters, we need to dissect their hate words.

But we should never use those hate words ourselves to describe others......