UK Question

RedGlitter · Post by **RedGlitter** » Fri Jan 18, 2008 12:55 pm

I've been told that UK schools have removed the Holocaust from their curriculum because it offended Muslims. Is this correct?

lemon_and_mint · Post by **lemon_and_mint** » Fri Jan 18, 2008 1:03 pm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6563429.stm

this might make it clearer - or maybe not!

dubs · Post by **dubs** » Fri Jan 18, 2008 1:05 pm

There's supposedly an email circulating, saying that this is true Red, it's not. There are 2 or 3 schools in the whole of the UK, for whatever reason, have taken it from their curriculum. My son is a high school teacher, and he's taking a group of students to Auschwitz later on this year.

RedGlitter · Post by **RedGlitter** » Fri Jan 18, 2008 1:10 pm

Thanks Lemon and Dubs!

kazalala · Post by **kazalala** » Fri Jan 18, 2008 1:29 pm

I hope not! Im sick of how ott pc we are becoming its ridiculous:mad:

RedGlitter · Post by **RedGlitter** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 2:52 am

Scrat, how do you teach the "unbelievers' side" when there is proof otherwise?

gmc · Post by **gmc** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 4:13 am

RedGlitter;759853 wrote: I've been told that UK schools have removed the Holocaust from their curriculum because it offended Muslims. Is this correct?

There isn't a UK wide school curriculum scotland , england & Wales and Northern Iraland have have different education systems.

There is a section of the media that like to try and stir things up with stories like this.

Post by **spot** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 3:24 pm

That really is an ugly post.

The Babi Yar massacre is a reasonable description of the targeting of the Death Squads in 1941. The policy was aimed at exterminating Jews and it was widespread and very organized. This was "a radical solution of the Jewish problem through the execution of all Jews" (Rudolf Lange, commander of Einsatzkommando 2 in Latvia, describing his orders).

None of the concentration camps were merely holding camps or refugee camps, they were set up in order to detain specific categories of people. There were normal prisons for normal prisoners. Their function wasn't mass killing though a lot of people ended up dying in them. They're something of a red herring and their function changed over the years but they weren't designed for mass slaughter.

The extermination camps came out of the Wannsee Conference in 1942. Before these new camps were up and running there were a million Jewish dead in Europe, mostly on the Eastern Front. The extermination camps were required simply to handle the volume of people involved. They were not collection points, they were not refugee camps, they were killing grounds often associated with twinned forced labour camps.

The impetus for the Wannsee decision wasn't Zionist, it was Third Reich policy. The two prime sources for that are the minutes of the meeting and the Eichmann trial in 1961. Eichmann's own Memoirs are well worth reading just for the insight into who was pushing and who was pushed.

If you want to discuss specifics rather than float unpalatable generalities then let's.

Nomad · Post by **Nomad** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 3:29 pm

If you want to discuss specifics rather than float unpalatable generalities then let's.

I consider myself an unpalatable generality. :-6

Post by **spot** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 8:34 pm

Scrat;760356 wrote: Makes no sense whatsoever especially considering the labor situation in Germany from 1942 onwards. They did not have automation then they needed human hands to keep the war effort going. Why kill off the people that are keeping the war machine going?

It makes no sense at all.

They worked to death the ones who could work, they killed immediately the ones who couldn't. The Wannsee minutes make clear that the conference planned it that way in 1942, Eichmann confirmed it, the Nuremberg Trials brought in evidence from numerous witnesses that it was put into effect. Would it help if I brought in some quotes?

The only person here who's suggesting that only the Jews who were killed are worthy of note is you.

The Nazi/Zionist discussions in the 1930s are instanced by the Haavara Agreement, I don't think that's contentious either. Who's suggesting that discussions didn't take place? It has nothing to do with suggesting that the holocaust was a deliberate Zionist policy to force the creation of a Zionist State and get Jews to move there.

Bruv · Post by **Bruv** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 9:06 am

Heavy stuff here.......

No doubt the holocaust happened.

What has happened since has made it appear that it was specifically targetting Jews.

Many groups wre subject to "Cleansing" But they are not a highly organised ethnic entity like the Jews.

The Jews were scattered world wide in positions that could spread the message, the Gypsies and the like were not.

That is why we all think the holocaust was a Jewish thing.....it was not.

RedGlitter · Post by **RedGlitter** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 10:14 am

I just now got back to this thread, sorry.

Scrat, I remember now having this same discussion with you long ago, and how insistent you were about the Russians who were also killed. I think because in teaching us about the Holocaust, they stress the Jews and that is what has an impact on us. I can say for my own education on it, I do not remember learning about Russians or Gypsies back in school and by the time I read up on it on my own time, the Jewish emphasis was already etched on my mind.

I am not saying those Russians and Gypsies were not every bit as worthy as every Jew who died during that mess. It was simply an accidental omission, an oversight. I noticed it wasn't the Gypsies who concerned you when you first spoke out, but specifically the Russians. Perhaps that's because you have personal emotional ties to Russia and not because you don't care- see? You did it too. I have Jews in my circle so I specifically make the Holocaust connection with and through them.

It disturbs me a bit hearing it called the Holocaust industry. I don't feel it's an industry at all. You ask where is the proof it happened, well I consider the former Nazi agents who spoke out about what happened and what part they played in it, to be of sound proof. At least proof enough for me. I consider the stories told to me by my Jewish friends about how their friends and family had been exterminated or lived in fear of being so, to be sound proof. I believe the photos of skeletal dead victims and piles of boots and shoes** to be proof.

** wish i had saved the url, but just the other day I came across a Holocaust site with old photos on it. One was a huge mountain of shoes from one day's gassing= shoes for 25,000 people it said. Now whether that number is feasible for one day, I don't know, but I'm not going to split hairs. People died. And...in this piece, the Russians and Gypsies WERE mentioned.

kazalala · Post by **kazalala** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 10:20 am

My Grandad (well step grandad really) was polish. he and his brothers were taken to the POW camps. all his brothers were killed, he escaped. they were not Jewish, but were quite wealthy land owners:-2

Post by **spot** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 1:40 pm

This is the sort of thread where people really do have an obligation to bring facts with them as well as opinions, it's a subject whjich matters more than most.

kazalala, if you have any of these relatives left to be asked you could see whether Katyn is at least a part of the story.

RG, the display of shoes - that huge display of shoes, and another of hair and another of suitcases - is at Auschwitz and it's a dreadful exhibition to stand in front of. So, come to that, is a day at Yad Vashem where remnants of Eastern European Jewry are displayed, which last week's thread mentioned. Every child in the world should be taken round both as an obligation, either in person or at least through a Virtual Reality equivalent even though that'd miss out the smell and the wind and the forlorn abandonment of the death camp itself.

None of this has anything to do with the outrageous sub-humanisation of the Palestinians the non-Muslim world's engaged in ever since. By all means teach Holocaust Studies to British Muslims, but don't stop teaching what happened afterwards. Every school history syllabus I've ever seen in England stops in the early fifties for a very specific and very shameful reason.

gmc · Post by **gmc** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 4:13 am

Having benefited from a UK education like most of my countrymen not only do I know the holocaust was not just about the jews-(in fact it's called the holocaust not the jewish holocaust)

I even know about the russian revolution and the concentration camps of stalin.Good grief I even know it was the british that had the first concentration camps and coined the term. Did you know that as part of the Yalta agreement with Stalin the british handed over thousands of Ukrainians that had fought for hitler and surrendered to the allies rather than the russians on condition they would not be repatriated? This was done knowing what their fate was going to be. It wasn't just the germans that were nasty shits everybody was at it.

It gets taught as a warning of how racism and bigotry of any kind can lead on to the most frightful consequences-not suddenly but gradually slipping in to ever increasing horror.

posted by scrat

Food for thought isn't it? I haven't gotten to the bottom of it and I don't think I ever will, deciphering propaganda and finding the truth is sometimes like looking for a needle in a haystack. You really need to look behind the scenes then toss in things like unintended consequences and the agendas of powerful organizations and people.

You really need to get off this idea that there is some kind of conspiracy by secret organisations. All the information is out there just look. Like most countries we have a sixty year moratorium on the release of documents. There is a whole plethora of one secret documents now in the public domain. Russia is also releasing a lot of once secret documents. people who were actually there are publishing memoirs before they die if you want to get in to eye witness accounts.

Maybe you look at the conspiracy theory used by the nazis to generate fear and hatred in germany to see where belief in such things can lead. Or maybe you think they were right?:sneaky:

Galbally · Post by **Galbally** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 5:32 am

I think that the point that Spot made about the facts being paramount in a thread like this is very true. Its very important to state clearly that the Holocaust as it is perceived and portrayed in terms of the concentration camp system and the policy of the systematic demonization, segregation, and extermination of the Jewish race (though Judaism is a religion not a race) in Europe; and the resultant deportation, imprisonment, and murder of approximately 6 million individual European Jews from the countries occupied by the German Army, (and of course Germany itself), is an absolute historical fact. There is no possible equivocation on this point.

The fact that the Nazi regime also carried out a policy of mass murder against Russian, Ukranian, Belorussian, and Polish civilians and soldiers on racial grounds , and also against homosexuals, gypsies, intellectuals, trade unionists, and any other social group they considered undesirable within Germany itself is also undeniable and should not cloud the issue of the particular policy in regards to what was considered the "Jewish Question". What is pertinent is that the Nazi ideology was based on the racial superiority of the "Aryan" race and by extension the German people, all other "races" and nationalities were supposedly inferior and therefore the German people had the right to use and exploit them, or ultimately liquidate them, as they saw fit. This involved the racial stereotyping of all peoples and the suffering and death of millions. Subsequent events, or other historical wrongs, have no moral impact on the Nazi's utterly barbarous policies and the responsibility of Hitler, the Nazi Party, the Wermacht, the Waffen SS, and many, many individual Germans for what was done.

kazalala · Post by **kazalala** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 12:53 pm

spot;760697 wrote: This is the sort of thread where people really do have an obligation to bring facts with them as well as opinions, it's a subject whjich matters more than most.

kazalala, if you have any of these relatives left to be asked you could see whether Katyn is at least a part of the story.

RG, the display of shoes - that huge display of shoes, and another of hair and another of suitcases - is at Auschwitz and it's a dreadful exhibition to stand in front of. So, come to that, is a day at Yad Vashem where remnants of Eastern European Jewry are displayed, which last week's thread mentioned. Every child in the world should be taken round both as an obligation, either in person or at least through a Virtual Reality equivalent even though that'd miss out the smell and the wind and the forlorn abandonment of the death camp itself.

None of this has anything to do with the outrageous sub-humanisation of the Palestinians the non-Muslim world's engaged in ever since. By all means teach Holocaust Studies to British Muslims, but don't stop teaching what happened afterwards. Every school history syllabus I've ever seen in England stops in the early fifties for a very specific and very shameful reason.

That was interesting Spot

Sadly my Grandad was the only "relative" he came here and married my nan when she already had all her children, and widowed. He used to try to keep communications up with his mother apparently but the letters were so censored it was a waste of time. He eventually gave up everything that was his life before and started a new life here. He was a good good man. I tried once to see if i could find anything out about his past life, but drew a blank. He didnt talk about it much, and not to me at all, so i just know snippets that my mother told me.

gmc · Post by **gmc** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 2:16 pm

kazalala;761262 wrote: That was interesting Spot

Sadly my Grandad was the only "relative" he came here and married my nan when she already had all her children, and widowed. He used to try to keep communications up with his mother apparently but the letters were so censored it was a waste of time. He eventually gave up everything that was his life before and started a new life here. He was a good good man. I tried once to see if i could find anything out about his past life, but drew a blank. He didnt talk about it much, and not to me at all, so i just know snippets that my mother told me.

Where I grew up was an area where a lot of the free polish forces were based. There was a fairly large segment of my school that were of polish descent-the children of polish troops that chose not to go home to live under communism and married local girls.

gmc · Post by **gmc** » Wed Jan 23, 2008 2:37 am

posted by scrat

Why? Why is that done? It is pervasive in all writing of the holocaust and the media. One of my biggest bones is this is a big line of the reasoning behind the wests policies towards Israel (it is the main tool of the sophistry used) who is perpetrating their own holocaust on their own kin.

Depends what media you're reading. I get the impression you start out with the assumption all the media is putting a particular point of view and that's it carefully ignoring anythig that clashes with your own prejudices. . Most of the media I read is fairly hostile to the current actions of israel on the gaza strip and when they invaded lebanon. Nor was the holocaust or the stories of forced labour only about the jews. Arguably they were the largest contingent.

Maybe it's collective guilt. Anti-Semitism was rife throughout the western world, especially in establishment figures and endorsed by most of the Christian churches. A lot of the emphasis on the jewish aspect is perhaps a reaction to the shock of realising where that kind or indeed any kind of racism and bigotry can lead and guilt at not taking it seriously earlier on when the reports started coming out-well before 1942.

Was the mcarthy era of post war USA anti semitism in another guise?

The nazis were clever at conflating fear of communism and anti semitism in to one big hate playing on the fears of the establishment and prejudices of ordinary people. It's a mistake on your part to assume that what was going on in russia wasn't widely reported and there was increasing disillusionment within the world wide socialist movement about the russian revolution.

posted by scrat

I know more about it than you do. Whether they were Ukrainians or not is a matter of debate. The Cossacks (of the Galacian persuasion) did not consider themselves Ukrainians therefore they had little against raping and pillaging and murdering on a notorious scale under the Nazis. It should be common knowledge now that I fully condone the terrorizing of people who terrorize others.

I doubt it. I read your post with interest because I don't agree with a lot of them which makes them interesting. If someone doesn't agree with you it doesn't mean they know less it means they have a different point of view or may be better informed. It may be you know a lot less than you think you do, or merely research to find that which confirms their own prejudices ignoring anything that conflicts. But I don't intend to waste any time arguing about it. I really can't be bothered with whose sole recourse in any kind of discussion is I know more than you do. Reading your posts I am grateful for my UK education.

It should be common knowledge now that I fully condone the terrorizing of people who terrorize others.

That solves nothing, by that logic you approve of the Palestinian terrorizing the israelis and also of the israelis terrorising the Palestinians in return. each justifying their action because they are being terrorised.

RedGlitter · Post by **RedGlitter** » Wed Jan 23, 2008 6:30 am

Scrat, I think you might have misunderstood me. When I said the Russians and Gypsies had been overlooked, had been an oversight, I was speaking of my own oversight in not mentioning them when I talk about the Holocaust. No major thing, I jsust wanted to clear that up.

gmc · Post by **gmc** » Wed Jan 23, 2008 7:12 am

posted by scrat

That's a matter of conjecture, I hear a lot of crap about how Communists were actually Jews ect. Erich Von Manstein sure seemed to think that way and he was from that era.

Karl Marx as I'm sure you know, was jewish, so was Rosa Luxemburg you can see where they were coming from. The nazis conflated judaism and communism playing on both the fear and prejudice of the time in germany. Doesn't really matter whether it was true or not if people believe it. prejudice and bigotry don't need to make sense or even be accurate.

Is it education or indoctrination?

Education and I don't really care if you agree or not.

scrat

Enough of this, we're getting nowhere.

True but it is entertaining. I can accept that there may be some aspects you know that I am unaware of and am prepared to list-or read if you do not feel the need to reciprocate then it's your loss not mine.

It's amazing how the same issues-personal freedom, bigotry, hatred, how things should be run etc etc echo down the years.

Post by **spot** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 8:42 pm

Scrat;763757 wrote: This sophistry applies in many ways to what I hear about the holocaust, from the things I have read I really get the feeling that not only were the Nazis involved, Jews were also. Specifically the Zionist movement.
Come on Scrat, put up some facts. Where, who, when and what, then we can try discussing why. No Zionist wittingly colluded in designing the death of European Jewry in order to establish a Zionist state. Who are you accusing?

Post by **spot** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 10:12 pm

Scrat;763806 wrote: I'm using this as an example to try to point out to you that I think that while you in many ways are correct, in many ways you are very very wrong as are your sources. Or perhaps your sources are distorted. I'm reasonably sure that what gmc had in mind was Harold Macmillan and Count Nikolai Tolstoy and allegations of libel. It was quite widely discussed at the time.

gmc · Post by **gmc** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 4:43 am

Scrat;763806 wrote: Oh how true that is. Especially when they have to rely on others for their information.

You direct me to links ect all the time about Lenin, Stalin, Bolshevism ect. I hear all of that stuff all of the time and to use a quote "Doesn't really matter if its the truth or not if people believe it" does nothing for the case in my eyes except add impetus to my arguement. I have been to Russia, I have seen the legacy (with my own eyes) of what they have accomplished in more than a century of social upheavel, revolution, world war and "coldwars" contrived and designed to weaken them, beat them down and to even destroy them as a people. They preserved and accomplished more than you have any idea of and they suffered immensly to do it. Very few other people would have come close, many more simply would have disappeared.

I'm using this as an example to try to point out to you that I think that while you in many ways are correct, in many ways you are very very wrong as are your sources. Or perhaps your sources are distorted.

Back later Spot. I have to track the article down.

I can't decide whether you are being deliberately obtuse or just miss the point.

The nazis took fear of communism and prejudice against jews and played on the two. Mixing them up in a cocktail of fear that goes on today in ione form or another. The biggest lesson from the nazi era is how and where such political shenanigans can lead. That's why it's something that should be studied.

Karl Marx was Jewish. It's not too hard to see where the idea of communism as a jewish conspiracy came from. Rosa Luxembourg and several leaders of the sparticist uprising were also Jewish a lot of the banking institutions and industrialists were jewish. They took a bit of truth mixed it up with hate and envy to produce a cocktail of propaganda about a world wide jewish conspiracy that people would swallow all done at a time when an atmosphere of uncertainty and despair about the future was prevalent.

If you recall the quote supposedly attributed to goebbels

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."

This sophistry applies in many ways to what I hear about the holocaust, from the things I have read I really get the feeling that not only were the Nazis involved, Jews were also. Specifically the Zionist movement.

Not all jews were communist of course. One of the ironies is that the nazi party, in the early years, received financial aid from jewish industrialists more worried about a communist revolution than anything else. But the idea that the holocaust was part of some plot on the part of the zionist movement to get a jewish homeland is a wonderful piece of sophistry on it's own. The good news is we will have jewish homeland again, the bad news is you have to get in the oven first.

posted by scrat

'm using this as an example to try to point out to you that I think that while you in many ways are correct, in many ways you are very very wrong as are your sources. Or perhaps your sources are distorted.

I haven't posted any links so I assume you refer to links in other threads. I suggest you look at them. If the source is flawed then say so and why.

posted by spot

I'm reasonably sure that what gmc had in mind was Harold Macmillan and Count Nikolai Tolstoy and allegations of libel. It was quite widely discussed at the time.

Actually no I was unaware of that. The repatriation of soviet citizens under the terms of the yalta agreement was hushed up at the time for fear of what the public reaction in the UK would be. It was only after the moratorium on documents ended that it came out in any real detail. It's arguably one of the more shameful actions of ww2.

I find myself irritated by assertions that there is some dark conspiracy to keep the truth of historical events hidden when in reality is there are massive resources and information available for anyone to investigate if they so desire. Especially now that the sixty year moratorium is over. Then you have papers like the daily telegraph that want to stir things up so they can tut tut about the decline brought about by too much tolerance when some moron decides to get violent.

I live in a country where I can walk in to a bookshop and buy a copy of Mein Kampf and the communuist manifesto if I choose to do so and mao's little red book and the bible for a bit of variety if I feel like a change then there is always harry potter if I get fed up with the heavy grown up stuff. I like it that way. None of these books are banned and the truth about perfidious Albion is taught in our schools in all it's gory detail.

Post by **spot** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 8:50 pm

I confess I'd never expected to see an entire paper authored for the Institute for Historical Review appear on ForumGarden.

I've managed to find the footnotes, I'd be stuck without them.

It will, you'll understand, take me a while to read, digest and write a response to that.

Richard Bell · Post by **Richard Bell** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 9:37 pm

Scrat;767338 wrote: I found this in my files, it should be easy enough to check out. A guy named Weber wrote it.

I Googled this guy.

I'm not surprised that you have his work in your files.

Post by **spot** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 11:19 pm

Right, I've read the essay.

I have no doubt that the content is true. It would be madness for the author to have invented any of the quotes, for example, since that would make what he's created far to easy to pull down.

I dispute some of his inference. For example, he has a quote from Georg Kareski that "This interruption of the process of dissolution in many Jewish communities, which had been promoted through mixed marriages, is therefore, from a Jewish point of view, entirely welcome", in reference to the Nuremberg Laws. The implication that this is a typical reaction of German Jews wouldn't be supportable. Mark Weber is careful not to claim it's typical but on the other hand he gives no balanced flavour by pointing out other relevant reactions at the time. I suggest he's very one-sided in his selection of material but entirely accurate within that selection.

Consequently it's worth looking at what he doesn't claim, which I'm quite sure he would trumpet to the rooftops if he had any evidence at all for it.

He doesn't claim that there was any Jewish complicity in, for example, November 1938's "Kristallnacht" (which he mentions), by any Zionists. He doesn't suggest that any of the arrests pre-war, or any of the concentration camp round-ups, involved any Zionist foreknowledge, joint planning or participation. He doesn't suggest that Zionists were involved in designing or implementing, or even anticipating, the Final Solution as described at Wannsee in 1942.

Your original question, Scrat, was "did the Zionist movement arrange with the Nazis a means to make living conditions in Europe so unbearable that European Jews would move to the new Israel?". There's nothing at all in Mark Weber's essay to suggest that it did. Please, if I'm wrong, extract any sentence at all that suggests they did and post it here. I think what's in the essay is quite true but it's completely contradictory to your claim.

gmc · Post by **gmc** » Wed Jan 30, 2008 2:52 am

Scrat;767358 wrote: So you're saying what? I'm anatomically and aerodynamically incorrect? Or perhaps not politically correct? Or am I a jackbooted facist Nazi sympathizer?

People like you just motivate me more, you're useful.

Even if you don't know what the hell you're taking about.

Yeah Spot it will take some reading, it's a real mess but the fact that the Zionists had an interest in the colonization of the yet to be born Israel and had to have a reason and a means to bring this about does exist.

The key was the means, I think that's where they screwed up.

Haven't had time to read your earlier post in detail but that is intriguing and I will read it properly when I have more time.

It is also interesting when you dig in to where the nazis got their financing from. There were jewish contributors but I still regard your assertion that the holocaust was part of a zionist/nazi plan to be unlikely. That the two sides would try and manipulate each other is not surprising.

What actually went on to happen is so unbelievable that no one IMO could have foreseen it. On the other hand there are plenty instances in the past of attempted and actual genocide so perhaps it is not so surprising.

During ww1 the british had promised the arabs much to get their support what happened afterwards in palestine was not just simply zionists in the british government getting their way.

With history simple explanations are often the least likely to be the right ones. Reality is more incredible than any fiction can hope to be.

posted by richard Bell

I Googled this guy.

I'm not surprised that you have his work in your files.

I can understand why you say that but I think scrat is eclectic rather than necessarily left or right wing.

I have copies of the communist manifesto, the right of man, wealth of nations, mein kampf, the bible and the kama sutra. The dangerous one is the last one as you can do yourself a mischief if you're not careful.

Post by **spot** » Mon Feb 04, 2008 7:08 am

RedGlitter;759853 wrote: I've been told that UK schools have removed the Holocaust from their curriculum because it offended Muslims. Is this correct?

Just to show how propaganda skews people's perception of reality, this is from today's BBC news:A project taking thousands of English teenagers to visit Auschwitz is to be funded for another three years, says the government. Two sixth formers from every school in England are currently funded to visit Auschwitz in Poland, to encourage an understanding of the Holocaust. The project will receive an extra £4.65m to extend it until 2011.

"Every young person should have an understanding of this," says Schools Minister Jim Knight.

The project, in which 6,000 teenagers per year spend a day visiting the Auschwitz camp and meeting survivors of the Holocaust, was launched in 2005.

Post by **spot** » Mon Feb 04, 2008 10:23 am

Excuse my returning so quickly to the same thread but the BBC seems to be almost as focused on the question as I am. This appeared this afternoon, following up the earlier comment:UK government acts on hoax e-mail

The UK government is taking the unprecedented step of writing to every embassy to stop a false e-mail rumour about Holocaust teaching being banned. A widely-circulated e-mail has falsely claimed that schools in the UK will stop teaching the Holocaust because it might cause offence to Muslims.

Schools Secretary Ed Balls says he wants to "put an end once and for all to the myth" spread by the e-mail. He says teaching the Holocaust remains "non-negotiable" in England.

This formal government rebuttal of a hoax e-mail has been prompted by a persistent rumour that "UK schools" are set to remove the Holocaust from the curriculum.