Onward to Part III, subtitled: The Bigwigs in Canada get a grilling:
In Ottawa, a blizzard raged!
Inside the deposition room, we gave the Party officials a thorough going-over - and not a few obviously uncomfortable moments! It was nice for a change to watch ***them*** having to answer ***our*** questions. In no time at all, we accomplished all our tasks and even let them go home early. They seemed visibly relieved.
The by then wet and freezing lady lawyer had to stop to buy waterproof war boots at $69, while I called Ingrid Rimland in California to give her a blow-by-blow description of how things were moving along in Ottawa.
Then my attorney and I headed back into the blizzardy night, the train moving slowly, cautiously blasting its doleful warning horn into the darkness. We arrived at the little hick town railroad station, dug out my old Chrysler, and slowly drove back behind a phalanx of huge snow plows (who seemed to plow the streets just for us!) to my lady lawyer's office.
There, I dropped her safely off in knee-high snow, bought a cup of coffee, some sandwiches, some windshield wiper fluid, filled up my trusty Chrysler with gasoline to the brim and carefully headed back for Toronto, listening to tapes on colloidal minerals, vitamins and Jimmie Swaggart singing my favorite hymns, "Amazing Grace" and "Ave Maria".
I arrived home at 1:00 A.M. - dead tired! A full night's sleep would have been a blessing!
No such luxury! I had an important date to keep in Western Canada and needed to leave within hours. I had to catch a plane by 5:00 A.M.!
For a while I debated if I should even bother to sleep. In the end, fatigue overcame me, and I slept for an hour.
Back into the blizzard I went the next morning - this time in an airport limousine for $38.00, which is cheaper than parking one's car for several days at an airport!
I made it on time! The plane was delayed by the storm!
After some anxious waiting and a thorough de-icing of the plane, the iron bird shuddered and creaked its way unto the runway, its nose poked firmly into the icy storm as we roared aloft under clouds of swirling snowflakes. Within minutes, we were high above the blizzard, experiencing a beautiful sunrise! I reflected on my life as I pulled out my notebook and jotted down my impressions of the last few days and weeks for future use!
In Vancouver, another attorney received me, and we went to check out the disposition in the Vancouver courthouse of the case of the people who allegedly sent out the threatening letters, mousetraps and exploding "things" (as per police report) to people like me and others whose ideology they did not like.
In this ever-so-strange criminal case, there have been postponements after postponements. I am always appraised by people in court about what goes on so that I will know immediately when irregularities take place. This is one murky case I intend to follow closely. There are things buried there that cry out for the light of day! Unfortunately, there seems to be a ban on publication of the actual inside courtroom proceedings. That's telling!
I had to rush back to Toronto in order to prepare the thousands of pages of documents which had to be copied, collated, tabbed and bound into books of authority and factums for our January 15, 1999 encounter with the lawyers from the Canadian Jewish Congress and B'nai Brith in Toronto's Federal Court. All these papers had to be filed with the court before our appearance.
Two Soldiers ". . . out of Stalingrad"
Let me now fill in the rest of the picture by describing what transpired inside the courtroom on the 8th Floor of the Federal Court in Toronto where Doug Christie and I were heading on foot - Doug Christie, just like Ingrid described him, looking for all the world like having stepped out of one of those grainy, haunting photographs you see in history books of the German soldiers in encircled Stalingrad!
We had found a pair of solid old rubber boots in his large size in the basement, left over from the construction after the arson. He wore his black trench coat with the military style epaulets flapping wildly in the gusts of wind. He borrowed one of my World War II style German forage military type caps you see in those World War II newsreels of the siege of Stalingrad. He wrapped one of my heavy winter scarves around his head, neck, ears and jaws. I was similarly dressed.
"Adorned" like this, we headed into the snowstorm to do battle with, as David Irving so aptly calls them, our Traditional Enemies - two hours early.
Normally it would have taken ten minutes by taxi. The Battling Barrister, as he is often called, and I trudged, loaded down with pack sacks full of books of authority, faktums, documents, the Criminal Code etc. through nearly impassable streets, knee-high in snow! It was blowing fiercely. Few people were outside, bracing the elements - but we arrived at the court house, well ahead of time.
The court house was virtually empty except for a few security guards. Only the Jews and the Germans, it seemed, were determined to battle that morning, in spite of all that snow!
I knew the walk would bathe me in perspiration. Therefore, I had thought it a good idea to "schlepp" along an extra undershirt, socks, sweaters, handkerchiefs etc. Luckily and wisely I did! I was soaking wet from struggling with this heavy load of books in the deep snow!
We changed in the Barristers' Lounge! As I did so, I was wondering what the Jewish lawyers would say, should they have found me in their august place? Lucky for them - and most likely for me!- they did not encounter a hairy-chested, half-naked Ernst Zundel drying himself off in their Holiest of Holies!
Tomorrow: Part IV of "Two Weeks in the Life of Ernst Zundel"
Thought for the Day:
Woodman, spare that tree!
Tough not a single bough!
In youth it sheltered me,
and I'll protect it now!"
(George Pope Morris)