I DO not know precisely the number of extermination camp deaths under Hitler, but I think the point made by CT Riley (HAS, June 6) is worth making.

It does not reduce the terrible losses of life suffered by Jewish people to acknowledge there were other losses of life where the suffering has been overshadowed because the publicity machine of the Jews has been more effective.

Many people suffered under the Nazis for their beliefs, their associations or simply because the Nazis were opposed to them politically. Others suffered for being homosexual or mentally retarded.

The political effect of the concentration of the suffering under the Nazis by the Jews has been to make countries, such as the US, less inclined to notice the deeds of the Israeli government and to side with it when almost everyone else in the world can see that the Israeli government has scant regard for international law.

History has always tended to be the story of the victors and it seems that under US hegemony the state of Israel is meant to be given a place of special privilege.

It behoves us to want history represented in a fair-minded manner, and when this is not the case those who point it out should be heeded.

Geoffrey Bulmer, Billingham.

CT Riley (HAS, June 6) asks a valid question: why is it wrong “to deny the murder of six million Jews... but somehow acceptable to ignore the deaths of more than five million people who... belong to groups still subject to... bigotry?”

Moreover, Mr Riley hasn’t tumbled to the half of it: there is also the so-called “Holodom”, that’s the death of ten to 20 million East European peasants under Stalin’s botched agricultural reforms. This gets negligible publicity compared to the Holocaust.

The explanation for all this is that the Jewish community is good at pushing its interests and publicising its grievances. The so-called “Holocaust industry” is part of this.

I admire the brains and hard work of the Jewish community.

But the rest of us should think about the extent to which we are being manipulated by this effort.

The Iraqi ambassador to the UN just before the Iraq war said that the reasons for the war were threefold: revenge for 9/11, oil, and protecting Israel. Quite right. Not one of these three reasons justified the war.

Ralph Musgrave, Durham.