The Holocaust is an emotive subject. It’s difficult not to get emotive when you’re dealing with a subject that involves the slaughter of approximately six million Jews and another three to five million from other persecuted groups. It’s not the sort of subject that you’d want to treat lightly; it represents a shameful part of the world’s history.

So I can understand if people get upset because they think that UK schools are to be banned from teaching about the Holocaust, because supposedly some Muslims are offended by it, because they think it’s inaccurate.

To ban teaching about the Holocaust? It’s political correctness (come on, join in, you know the words) gone mad! We’re all going to hell in a handcart!

Or at least we would be … if it were true.

But it’s a load of bollocks. I’ve been aware of it for over a month, being a regular reader of the Sophos Blog, so I keep abreast of malware, email hoaxes, chain letters and all of that sort of thing, and sure enough, the Holocaust Ban Chain Letter was listed on there on the 8th of January, where Sophos obviously point out that the claims aren’t true.

Unfortunately, that hasn’t stopped the claim continuing to do the rounds to the extent that the Department for Children, Schools and Families regularly have to handle queries about it (and no doubt deal with irate people who don’t think it should have been removed, not realising that it hasn’t been removed); the email apparently continues to be published on many websites and so the Government have today taken the step of writing to every embassy to scotch the rumour.

I want to put an end once and for all to the myth that the Holocaust is not being taught in schools or is being removed from the curriculum.

I am pleased to confirm that this is absolutely not the case. Teaching of the Holocaust is compulsory in all secondary schools between the ages of 11 and 14.

We are clear that there are certain non-negotiable subjects, which are protected in schools; one of those is the Holocaust.

Schools Secretary Ed Balls, quoted on BBC News

Yes, some people do deny the Holocaust happened. Some people don’t like Jewish people. Some people don’t like Muslim people. And some people don’t like homosexuals. Or disabled people. And indeed some people will go out of their way to be offensive to others.

Dear Anonymous commenter who keeps leaving me dissertation length comments telling me my “disability is a punishment from the gods. [****] Off.Lisy Babe’s Blog

And that’s just because I came across that one today. I’m sure there’s plenty of examples of racism, sexism, homophobia (-ism?), religious hatred, disablism and so on that I could have found in just five minutes if I’d looked. But just because there are people out there with those sorts of views doesn’t make the world a dark and evil place. Most people aren’t like that.

So what are people like, then? Well this fuss actually reinforces some of my preconceptions about “people” as a whole…

1. People are adamant that the Holocaust needs to be taught in schools (good)
2. People are willing to believe everything they read on the internet irrespective of the source (bad)
3. People are more willing to believe some random email contains accurate and unpleasant news than they are to believe a Governmental denial of that news (interesting)

Of course, that last point would suggest to me that the general public don’t trust politicians. Which surely can’t be the case, can it?