Yes, there are two sides in teaching Holocaust history in Texas: honesty and lies

Why you teach honest history

The Southlake school administrator who admonished teachers to be careful to present students with books offering “opposing” perspectives on the Holocaust should be required, as should all teachers and every student, to spend a day confronting man’s unspeakable capacity for evil on display in the infamous concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland. (Oct. 18, 2A, “Southlake mayor speaks out on ‘opposing’ Holocaust views”)

They should be made to walk down the long corridor of the former ordinary office building, pausing to peer through floor-to-ceiling glass walls, one room filled with human hair meant to be woven into cloth for German military uniforms, the next with eyeglasses, the next with limb prosthetics and false teeth, the next with children’s toys.

All were systematically stripped from doomed prisoners. To the administrator: Which opposing perspective do you propose?

- Silas O. Hughes Jr., Fort Worth

Engel column not about sports

Is Mac Engel a sports reporter or should he be on the Opinion page? In Sunday’s sports section, he has an opinion piece about the Southlake district administrator’s Holocaust comments, and although I agree with him wholeheartedly, that’s not a sports story. (1B, “Cowboys, Rangers voices irate on ‘opposing’ view of Holocaust”)

With the extra space in the Sports section, maybe you could report on the baseball playoffs in a timely manner.

- Lynn Miller, Granbury

No to second-class citizenship in Texas

I was born a second-class citizen without a voice or a vote in apartheid-era South Africa. The world condemned that system in the 1990s. The U.S. is not a third-world apartheid country. Its democracy is based on a simple principle of representation: one person/one vote.

Redistricting should ensure fair and equal representation that reflects changing demographics. South Asians are the fastest-growing minority population in Texas, yet proposed political maps don’t reflect that change.

Legislators are diluting and dividing our voices by grouping us with rural areas. With these maps, Texas will violate the Voting Rights Act and the 14th Amendment.

- Chanda Parbhoo, Dallas

Fake COVID cards’ multiple victims

Hawaiian authorities recently arrested two California travelers with fake COVID-19 test documents designed to avoid a mandatory quarantine intended to halt the spread of the coronavirus in the islands. I’m glad they were charged with a crime.

Reading about this case made me realize how idiotic people can be when it comes to COVID-19. Why would someone fake a COVID test knowing it might risk other people’s lives? Don’t they realize they could kill a person?

Some people don’t seem to believe COVID-19 is real. They risk their own lives and others’.

- Neftalie Castruita, Hurst

Higher death rates are not ‘freedom’

I hate wearing a mask. But I can give you study after study concluding that wearing a mask significantly reduces the spread of infectious diseases such as influenza and COVID-19. I can show you statistics proving that Japan does a superior job in the areas of masking, testing and tracing, hygiene and social distancing. Japanese death rates from COVID-19 are drastically lower than ours.

Republicans have concluded that their message, “Big Brother is taking away your freedom,” will win them votes. It’s totally irresponsible.

- Philip J. Klein, Granbury