Words are powerful. I assume that as newspaper publishers you understand this.
That power also mandates the careful use of words, not just to ensure factual accuracy but also to enable true understanding of the facts. I thoroughly enjoyed the March 12 article about Adams Jewelry and the family story behind it (“Hidden diamonds allowed family patriarch to start new life”).
I also applaud your editorial on March 19 remarking on that story and wishing Andy Adams well and noting how his store added to the character of Main Street. In that editorial you mentioned Adams’ father and noted that, “His mother, wife and daughter were imprisoned at the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944, and perished during the Holocaust.”
This is where I take issue with your choice of words. The word perish is a very passive word that does not imply anyone or anything causing them to perish, that it was just something that happened to them. A more specific word that gives a truer picture of what actually transpired and what was done to Adams’ family is that they were murdered.
Madelaine Zadik
Cummington