REGULAR readers of this column will have noted that recent articles touched on the history of the Jews in one way or another. My interest is not, as some detractors have alleged, spurred by anti-Islamic web sites or Zionist sympathies.

Long before those three little words World Wide Web became popular, I'd already been poring over books about WWII, especially on European theatres of war and biographies of wartime leaders like Churchill and war architects like Hitler.

You might think it strange that a woman should be keenly interested in this period of history but I say that my interest is wholly understandable. As one living in Malaysia (go ahead and connect the dots) and a student of linguistics and mass communication, it had intrigued me how Nazi propaganda so successfully brainwashed so many people so widely.