World War II was a "holocaust" of unimaginable casualties that left over 50 million people dead, countless injured and countries bombed into rubble. Eleven million died in concentration camps, six million were Jews. To remember the Jewish victims, Holocaust museums have been built throughout our nation. The most prominent is the US Holocaust Museum on the Capitol Mall that is maintained by American tax dollars.

History reminds us all of the evil man is capable of inflicting on his fellow man. World War II in all its cruel and hideous dimensions demonstrated to what extremes human beings are capable of when there is hatred and prejudice.

The focus of Holocaust museums in America is mainly about Jewish victims. Many of these museums are maintained by American tax dollars. Over 20 million Russians died in World War II. There are no Russian Holocaust museums in the United States to remember the Russian dead to my knowledge. In WWII no one nation or people had a monopoly on death. All experienced the same horrors and extermination resulting from hatred and prejudice.

Sixty years of remembering the Jewish dead has become a cottage industry for the Jewish community in all its aspects. In this, the 21st century, prejudice thrives in America and prescriptions for tolerance without underpinnings of core beliefs are hollow indeed. Today, particularly in the Middle East, we see the ravages visited upon one group of people against another. Very little has changed in human behavior in which men savage each other in order to dominate and to enslave others.

It is to the credit of Jews to want to remember their history. In educating American children of the Jewish death toll of World War II, it needs to be put in the proper context of that war. Also, in educating children of the enormous sacrifice of American soldiers and the American nation in helping to liberate them.

Americans also need to be vigilant and aware that in this very dangerous time hatred is the soulmate of former victims who when circumstances arise that threaten their survival can also become savage victimizers.

Katherine Alferis