Here is Part II of Ernst's "Power" letter to his supporters, describing his travails in a blizzard so fierce that it puts your run-of-the-mill Canadian blizzards to shame:
On January 6, 1999 I had left Toronto at 4:30 A.M. to pick up my lady attorney, who lives 150 km away. From there we were to drive another approximately five hours to Ottawa to interrogate the bureaucrats who run Canada's political establishment apparatus. They were to be "deposed" - not literally, of course; it's merely a figure of speech. It meant they had to answer our questions in "depositions" in what is called "discovery" in a civil proceeding.
(These days, I have to be careful in how I phrase things - after all, I am supposed to be a "security threat...")
I had left practically in the middle of the night, my old Chrysler tuned up, tanked up and ready to face the elements, for outside it was blowy and galey! Snow was swirling everywhere. Visibility was poor. The roads were slushy and treacherous. However, due to the early hour I moved out of the city fairly rapidly into the vast emptiness of rural Canada, passing rows and rows of trucks on the four-lane East-West highway.
The snowstorm turned into a blizzard! I was pressing on!
Suddenly I was jolted out of my deep thoughts by the shrill piercing ring of my car phone. It was my lady lawyer, urging me to cancel the whole thing! The roads were just too dangerous!
I persuaded her to wait till I got to see her in person. I said we could discuss it over a cup of coffee. The truth is I wanted to see these guys grilled so badly I was willing to suffer through any kind of weather! I was gearing up for the battle, and the adrenaline was flowing!
My lawyer reluctantly agreed. I drove on, cautiously, but utterly determined that the enemy would not get away! Not if I could help it! A sortie was aiming for Ottawa! The enemy would be engaged!
Out of a wild dance of snowflakes materialized a roadsign. It was my exit, to pick up my trusted legal advisor. By then I realized that we would have great difficulty to make the 1 P.M. deadline if we continued by car in this storm.
There was a train passing us. The lady lawyer, sitting quietly next to me in the car, looking worried, said in a somewhat shaking voice: "Why don't we simply switch to the train in the next town? It's only going to cost $40 for each of us to go up to Ottawa!"
By now, even I was convinced we could not plow on by car, so we headed for the snowed-in railroad station out in the wilderness of Canada.
That station looked like the snow-and-ice covered estate in the "Dr. Zhivago" film where Omar Sharif writes his poetry and love letters to Lara with frozen fingers. We parked the car in the snowed-in lot, locked everything securely, and dashed into the station where another shock awaited us. With various tax costs, this portion of our trip wasn't going to cost us $40 each - it amounted to $280 for this portion of our trip alone, including taxi fare from and to the station in Ottawa!
But every cloud, the saying goes, has a silver lining! No sooner had we boarded the train and the uniformed conductor appeared, when a delightful conversation ensued.
"Mr. Zundel, welcome to Via Rail! Heading for Ottawa?" -
Long pause. Smiles.
"Right!" I said. "I am going to ask Chretien to surrender!"
Laughs all around. I can tell you this: The simple people of Canada watch me. And many like me. They are very aware of what's playing, and who the real enemy is. They admire that I have the guts to stand up and call these mental tyrants bluff!
I'll give you another example. Can you imagine our surprise when, later in the day, a taxi driver, an Iraqi, within a few sentences of our conversation said with a smile from ear to ear: "So, you have studied the Holocaust? Then you must be familiar with the work of Roger Garaudy?"
Whereupon ***he*** proceeded to tell ***us*** what he knew about the Jewish exploitation of the Holocaust! Naturally addresses were exchanged, and information is on its way to eager Arab minds!
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Tomorrow: Part III of "Two Weeks in the Life of Ernst Zundel"
Thought for the Day:
"Let us therefore animate and encourage each other and show the whole world that a Freedman, contending for liberty on his own grand, is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth."
(Richard Henry Lee)