I was somewhat relieved to see the editorial in The Northern Star on Nov. 11 explaining your decision to print the advertisement headed “The Holocaust Controversy” that appeared in the paper on Nov. 8. I do not fully agree with your decision—newspapers have the right to refuse to print ads deemed offensive or otherwise objectionable—but I support your right to have made that decision.

It disturbs me, however, that you did not print the editorial the same day as the ad. As the daughter of an Auschwitz survivor and someone who lost many, many family members in the Holocaust—some in the very concentration camps the ad claimed were not death camps—I was shocked and appalled by the ads and the fact that initially, at least, you printed no accompanying piece explaining its appearance.

Several day’s delay means that many students who read the ad may not have read the editorial. In addition, I feel it was your responsibility to have invited Holocaust survivors and scholars in the community to comment and to have printed a statement directly disavowing the ad, not just defending your right to print it.

Unfortunately, students and others today lack a perspective on the past and a knowledge of our history. Printing the ad as you did probably led many to believe its claims were true. They are not.

Holocaust “revisionism” has nothing to do with political correctness, as the ad stated. It has much to do with anti-Semitism and hatred and denying the reality of those who perished under Nazism.

Recognizing and remembering the Holocaust and the millions who died has everything to do with making sure it does not happen again.

Jacquline Laks Gorman

DeKalb resident