Burning not borscht

Brendan Simms writes in his review of A Century of Genocide that genocide "is as authentically European as croissants, borscht or dumplings" (Books, THES , January 2). He cannot be accused of displaying any of the "liberal sensibility" he mentions at the beginning. The Crusades, slave trade or burning of witches would have been more appropriate comparisons.

Your illustration of the bodies of victims of the Holocaust adds insult to injury.

Peter van den Dungen
University of Bradford