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There was some confusion raised about my letter in last week's edition of The Jewish State, and I would like to take this space to fully explain my position.

I have been supporting those in Sheepshead Bay park in Brooklyn who feel additional markers at the Holocaust Memorial are unnecessary to honor those non-Jews who died in World War II. Markers already exist for non-Jews, but some people want larger markers.

A New Jersey rabbinical colleague asked the general question, Who owns the Holocaust? He states that our collective memory must include those non-Jews who were also victims of the Nazis. This should include Gypsies, homosexuals, the disabled, Jehovah's Witnesses, and political prisoners of the Nazis. I agree. However, the Holocaust refers to Jews, and yes, in my opinion, the term Holocaust is owned by Jews in the past, present, and future.

The Holocaust is the systematic mass murder of European Jewry by the Nazis. The term Holocaust literally means a fire that causes total destruction. Yehuda Bauer, one of the world's most eminent historians of the Holocaust, differentiates between the terms genocide and Holocaust by defining the term genocide as partial murder. While there have been numerous instances of genocide, the total annihilation of a people was never an officially sanctioned purpose of a national government as it was in Nazi Germany. It is precisely this which differentiates the Nazi action against the Jews from other genocidal attempts against a people.

The Nazis wished to conquer the world and, therefore, threatened the very existence of every single Jew in the world. The principle target of the Nazis was always the Jews. It is true that as many as 50 million human beings were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators. The Nazis destroyed the lives of Gypsies, homosexuals, the mentally disabled, Jehovah's Witnesses, communists, socialists, trade unionists and religious opponents. But it was only the Jews who were singled out for the Final Solution.

The Jews, according to Hitler, were maggots, a virus that had to be eliminated. Hitler saw himself as the German Messiah doing God's work by destroying the Jew. Let us not forget that all people with three or four Jewish grandparents were sentenced to death. Regarding the Polish population, there were no plans for total annihilation. Slavs were looked upon as being inferior Aryans; however, Slovaks, Croats, and Bulgarians were Slavs who served as German allies. It was only the Jew that Hitler and the Nazis considered to be like the devil and therefore inhuman. In the Jew, Hitler saw the image of Satan. According to Hitler, it was only the Jew who wished to dominate the world, and it was the Jew Hitler wanted to destroy.

Hitler and the Nazis created a policy of selective mass murder against the homosexuals, Gypsies, Poles, Russians, prisoners of war, Catholic priests, Jehovah's Witnesses, the physically and mentally disabled, dissidents, and others. But it was the Jew that was seen as a virus, a bacillus that had to be destroyed before it infected the entire world. It was the Jews who poisoned the mind of mankind. The policy of making the world Judenrein applied to the entire world. The group Hitler hated above all was the Jews. He made himself the supreme racist.

In his final hours, Hitler continued to urge the destruction of the Jew. Hitler had diverted trains and soldiers to concentration camps when he desperately needed them for the war effort. Germany was destroyed due to this madman and at the end all he could think about was murdering more Jews.

This madman was responsible for the murder of my grandparents, two siblings, uncles, aunts, and cousins. My father, Jacob, of blessed memory survived Auschwitz and my mother, Rachel of blessed memory survived Skazyskokarmiene. I became a rabbi to do everything in my power to prevent another Holocaust and to teach the world the lessons of the Holocaust. My fear is that after the death of the final Holocaust survivor and eventually the death of the children of Holocaust survivors, history will be re-written and the Holocaust will no longer be a Jewish issue but rather a universal one. The number will no longer be the 6 million Jews but rather 11 million victims or 50 million casualties of war.

We all should mourn and honor those who fought and died, Jew and non-Jew alike. However, let us never forget and always remember that it was the Jews who were the primary target of Hitler and the Nazi regime.

I was born in a displaced persons camp in Germany of Polish parents. I came to America as a refugee. I pray that the Holocaust and the memory of those who perished will be kept alive by our grandchildren and future generations.

Rabbi Rosenberg is spiritual leader of Congregation Beth-El, Edison.