Washington, February 16 : A renowned journalist and author has slammed Kate Winslet's film `The Reader' as "the worst Holocaust film ever made".

Ron Rosenbaum, whose acclaimed 1998 book `Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil' gathered much critical success, has called upon the BAFTA- and Golden Globe Award-winning drama to be overlooked at the Academy Awards ceremony on February 22.

"This is a film whose essential metaphorical thrust is to exculpate Nazi-era Germans from knowing complicity in the Final Solution," Contactmusic quoted Ron as writing in online magazine Slate.

While the 33-year-old actress won over critics with her role of a Nazi concentration camp guard, who has an affair with a 15-year-old boy, Ron seems to think otherwise.

He criticised the film's sympathetic approach towards Winslet''s character, which, according to him, impels the audience to feel as though "illiteracy is something more to be ashamed of than participating in mass murder".

Kate, however, has received much praise for her performance that had also won her gongs at several major awards. (ANI)