While Holocaust Memorial Day has come and gone, The Pianist - a gift from Roman Polanski - is on general release and gives us an an opportunity to understand and rethink our intolerance and ignorance on a number of issues.

Every person who has felt anger and distaste for a homeless person furtively hunched in a doorway should see this film.

Every member of the BNP, all the fundamentalists who grew up learning to hate Jews, the Jews who will not acknowledge Palestinian needs, all of us scared of panic-driven and desperate people leaving their countries and coming to us and every young person who takes for granted what the affluent West has given him or her should make a point of seeing the almost casually-told tale of The Pianist.

Its simplicity drives a stake through hearts of hatred.

-Valerie Paynter, Clarendon Road, Hove