Nicolas Kinloch’s 1998 review of Michael Burleigh’s Ethics and Extermination in Teaching History, 93, sparked a debate amongst our readers about the teaching of the Holocaust, concerning both rationales and practical approaches. Citing the damage caused to pupils’ understanding by a Spielberg view of history, he emphasised that the rationale and criteria for rigour must be primarily historical, rather than moral or social. ‘ We should teach the Shoah in schools. But I do not think that history teachers will really do so effectively until we have removed from it its quasi-mystical associations and clarified our own objectives. I think we have to start and end with what happened and why; with the Shoah as history’. His critics have argued that Kinloch draws too stark a distinction between an historical rationale for teaching the Shoah and moral, social or spiritual considerations. Thus, Terence McLaughlin, writing in Teaching History 96 (Letters) , ‘One difficulty for Kinloch’s position is that specifically historical criteria are not (always) isolatable from such considerations. Kinloch says that whilst the Shoah is a unique historical phenomenon, it is not unique in moral or social terms. Yet the historical significance of the event is partly constituted by its moral and social significance’. In this article Kinloch addresses some of his critics and develops the theme of historical uniqueness.