Well, his point wasn't that it didn't suck. He's a historian not an ethics dude. The right and wrong of it wasn't his concern. But believe me, he definitely got across that point and didn't downplay at all the severity of the anti-semitic culture. His point was that historically, the brutality displayed was less than it was later portrayed to be. 4000 people dead over the course of 400 years is rather less than most people would expect and that it didn't need exaggeration to make it horrific.