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Letters: Make Phila. Holocaust Memorial for all victims

ISSUE | HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL Remember all victims Philadelphia's Holocaust Memorial should incorporate the five million non-Jews who were killed by Adolf Hitler's forces (" 'A uniquely Jewish experience,' " Monday). I take issue with the letter writer who implied that to do so would deny the Nazis' obsession with the Jews. These Polish Christians and other non-Jews were not some sort of collateral damage but were Nazi targets, too.

ISSUE | HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL

Remember all victims

Philadelphia's Holocaust Memorial should incorporate the five million non-Jews who were killed by Adolf Hitler's forces (" 'A uniquely Jewish experience,' " Monday). I take issue with the letter writer who implied that to do so would deny the Nazis' obsession with the Jews. These Polish Christians and other non-Jews were not some sort of collateral damage but were Nazi targets, too.

As a Jewish American born in Amsterdam, I identified deeply with Anne Frank and took to heart that she cried watching Romani and Hungarian children being led to the crematoria. As a Jewish lesbian, I remember the first Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, after my coming out, when I realized that I would have been a Nazi target not once but twice. And while Mein Kampf may not have said so, the Nazis came for those with disabilities before they came for the Jews.

Memorializing all of the deaths does not take something away from us; instead, it adds to our humanity.

|Jennifer Sheffield, Philadelphia