It is profoundly morally wrong to teach young children systematic lies. As a trained and credentialed educator, I have had my eye on the Holocaust brainwashing activities in America's schools for some time, and I have an idea or two about how these abusive activities might be challenged.
Today, I have a stark example for you about how brainwashing in a temporal religion called "Holocaust" takes place in an American junior high school. But before I do so, I would like to show you how it was done in the Soviet Union not all that long ago.
My mother told me this story, and I have fictionalized this vignette in Book II of my trilogy, "Lebensraum - The Theft of Land and Peace", banned in Canada as "hate literature".
Here Mimi, a young child of simple, pious German farmers, is being psychologically besieged into despising her own religious history and background - and even her own brothers, "the twins", her mother, Marleen, her nanny, Natasha - and bullied into adopting the atheistic Creed of the State:
The teacher hovered close. "Who's plotting sabotage against the Party?"
"How should I know? I cannot tell," lied Mimi, despairing of her clumsy tongue that slung itself around Low-German diphthongs as though they were thick ropes.
It was no secret to the little Pioneer that agents of the Soviet had started shadowing the twins, just waiting for an opportunity to pounce on them and catch them at their prayers.
No wonder Mimi hated praying. That loathsome habit, she decided, was worse than being pawed by the old brigade foreman, who had tried.
She loved her brothers, though, and hence she shielded them. She looked at them with big, adoring eyes.
"Does anybody know," the teacher asked, not one to give up easily, "a traitor in our midst who, in the past, has had forbidden dealings with a foreigner?"
"I do not even have a clue," insisted Mimi skillfully, remembering to smile -remembering that hungry, rainy afternoon when Dewey had come visiting to settle a belated score. She still remembered him, the fat American-the wet wind blew his whiskers sideways! When she remembered him that way, she always doubled up with laughter.
His brand of Faith was anything but joy. The mystic Savior whom he served up by dipping in those burlap sacks-bypassing her, no matter what that rodent did, deep in her empty belly!-would be forevermore as far from her emotions as Siberia.
The teacher had a lot to say, and all of it was cutting. Her voice became louder and louder.
"If there are traitors in our midst, somebody has to turn them in. It might as well be you."
"We all agree. All traitors must be punished."
"The kulaks are a sore on our Mother Russia's body," the teacher bellowed frantically, and Mimi smiled at that as well, with all her might, for she was sharp, her mind was full of images.
She split her soul in half. She lived in two different worlds. She sloughed off one as she entered the other. A heady freedom, an exquisite pleasure, as right as gentle rain that fell upon a lake, came to her inner world when she played someone other than herself.
She knew that when the teacher pried: "Who is still prey to superstition?" and when she, Mimi, echoed faithfully: "Who might that be? Among us, who could be so foolish?" words were just words. Just that, and only that.
She learned to have one part of her, detached, observe the other as it compromised. She was a loyal and enthusiastic patriot rooting for the Soviet cause by day - and the Lord's furtive child at night as she watched silently while those at Apanlee still prayed, with twisted faces, heaving chests:
"Deliverance! Deliverance! Dear Lord, let us survive!"
That's what she heard as she grew up, but her heart had grown hard as a rock. To Mimi, the Gospel meant nothing.
She watched when Natasha knelt before her last icon, and held her breath as she kissed it She marveled at Marleen, who still had Faith, despite experience-that must have taught her: "Faith is sham!"-whose voice no longer cracked. She watched the twins thumb the Forbidden Book and glimpsed how something struck-a spark so pure, so genuine it kindled a prophetic light that started glowing deep within, much like a consecrated candle in a catacomb.
All that was there. She sensed it vividly.
Yet they were of the past. The future was hers to grasp tightly. She was earning high honors in class, a choice pupil endorsed by the Party.
"If you hear someone finding fault with our illustrious government, you better come running and tell. Report it at once. Report it in full. An extra star awaits you."
"I will."
"Reporting is your moral duty. Somebody has to do it. It might as well be you."
She knew that the entire German neighborhood was shivering beneath the Party's bedraggled red banners; the hammer and sickle, the malevolent energy that never gave out. There was no escaping; the abyss widened daily; her family stood at the brink. A dry and bony hand was closing on their necks.
At home, her pious brothers said, while practicing their parables: "Now spread your little fingers, love. Keep still and count to five. We'll help you think of five good answers next time the teacher asks you to report-"
"If need be," said the teacher, while winding down her lesson for the day, "you, too, will vote on who will live and who will die. Now, is that clearly understood?"
Yesterday, I received the following:
HOLOCAUST NEWSLETTER SPECIAL EDITION
Holocaust at About.com - http://holocaust.about.com
(Please forward this message to anyone who might be interested.)
Whitwell Middle School Needs Your Help
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This school project involves eighth grade students who are learning about the Holocaust and how prejudice and power in the wrong hands can be catastrophic. They have a project that they would like your help on:
When we mentioned that 6,000,000 Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, our students could not believe that that many people were killed and no one did anything to stop it. So, to show them just how many 6,000,000 is, we came up with the paper-clip project.
We are trying to have 6,000,000 paper-clips sent to our school to represent the 6,000,000 victims of the Holocaust. Will you help us by sending us paper-clips?
At the end of the project, the paper-clips will be melted down and molded into a memorial sculpture.
For more information about the project and for the address to send the paper-clips to, please visit
http://holocaust.about.com/library/misc/blclip.htm
Here's what I have to say:
One in every four Americans is a German-American or German descendant. I don't think I need to tell you what projects like this can do to impressionable young minds. This is systematic, state-sponsored vilification of a people.
I need your help in the following, because I have started some files collecting evidence for a potential "educational malpractice" lawsuit similar to the one just won by an organization in Texas:
* Find out about Jennifer Rosenberg, the webmaster of the above-named website . What are her religious and political affiliations and credentials? What is her educational background? What has she studied; where; when etc.
* Analyze Jennifer Rosenberg's website - I only visited the homepage, but it has all the conventional "nuggets" - Anne Frank, Babi Yar, Schindler's List etc. How much false information is there?
* Find out the address of the School Board and write letters to them, asking them if they know what's going on. Ask them if they approve.
* Find out about the principal and write a letter to him, asking how he justifies teaching children untruths. Insist on a response; it will be a valuable document.
* Someone should visit the school and the neighborhood to get a feel for the ethnic composition etc.
* Find out whose idea the "paper clip project" was in the first place.
* Find out about the local paper and write Letters to the Editor.
* Send me the information that you find. Send me copies of your letters. Be sure to send me the responses you receive. Send me any ideas and suggestions you might have for grassroots activism against the lies taught to our children to make them hate their heritage.
Ingrid
"All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth."
(Aristotle)
Back to Table of Contents of the Aug. 1999 ZGrams