Lloyd Totzke's Dec. 20, 2001 letter, This Is Persecution, manages, in the space of 100 words, to completely miss the point of the ongoing cases of Helmut Oberlander and Jacob Fast.

I am grateful, at least, for his economy.

What Oberlander and Fast have experienced, contrary to Totzke's belief, is prosecution, not persecution.

Let me explain the difference in a way that Totzke will find comprehensible: Prosecution brings an individual alleged to have committed an illegal act to the courts, where he is judged; persecution leads an innocent victim to the edge of a mass grave, where he is murdered.

That is the difference

Len Rudner
Director of Community Relations, Canadian Jewish Congress, Ontario Region
Toronto