Hollywood

Winslet Under Fire for Nazi Role

Jewish groups lead "covert campaign" against award win.

While Holocaust movies are seen by some as one of the fastest routes to an Oscar, accusations of an overly sympathetic portrayal of Nazis in The Reader may cost Kate Winslet a Best Actress win. The head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which confronts anti-Semitism around the world, has called the film "Holocaust revisionism." Film critics have suggested that the film lets Winslet's character, a death camp guard who helped burn 300 Jewish women in a church, off easy and some have complained that its depiction of ordinary Germans as unaware of the crimes being committed against European Jews is inaccurate. Opponents of the movie are circulating emails among Academy members in an effort to block the film from winning any major awards, The Sunday Telegraph reports.