In Germany, the excitement over the (to us) hilarious poster - "The Holocaust never happened" - continues to baffle some brains. Shortly after the posters appeared, to the delight of some and shrieking horror of others, officials found themselves confronted with Manfred Roeder, 72, always described as a recalcitrant, incorrigible "Neo-Nazi", who came up with a smart poster variation of his own.
Mr. Roeder used a gigantic poster from the foundation at the Brandenburg Gate by rolling out a banner of his own underneath. The Roeder poster said: "Crimes by Nazi Germany's military didn't happen either!"
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which has lately - rather cheekily! - started showing a tiny bit of its own rather withered patriotic sentiments, titled one write-up of this incident as "More 'Crimes' that weren't". (!)
For his pains, Mr. Roeder has netted himself yet another conviction of one year's worth of prison in repressive Germany - this time, luckily, with probation.
Spokesmen for the "Foundation for the Memorial to the Murdered Jews", responsible for these controversial posters, stated that even though the posters were "well-meaning", they caused "too much misunderstanding." The posters have been pulled.
Now the Foundation plans to continue its campaign with a far milder poster reading: "The future requires memory -- get involved in the construction of the memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe.''
Lessons for Cyber Fighters:
The enemy knows how potent our revisionist slogans are. "The Holocaust never happened!" "No holes - no Holocaust!" "Six Million did not die!" etc. Keep hammering away!
A panel of Jewish and Catholic eager beaver historians were recently trying to dig up dirt on Pope Pius' XII actions - or better, lack thereof - during the so-called Holocaust, but resigned from their tasks in a huff, claiming that Vatican archivists were not as forthcoming as they expected them to be.
For their part, Vatican officials have let it be known that they resent being pestered by what they call a "slanderous campaign" mounted against the Roman Catholic Church over the "Holocaust-era Pope". They are accusing the dirt-digging historians of "clearly incorrect behavior."
To that effect, a Vatican statement reads: "In recent days, a violent attack has again been unleashed against the Catholic Church. The occasion for this slanderous campaign has been furnished by the decision of the Jewish-Catholic study group to suspend its activity."
Elan Steinberg, executive director of the World Jewish Congress, called the Vatican statement a "disgraceful slap in the face to Jews and Catholics who have worked for reconciliation and understanding."
"To defend the silence of Pope Pius XII is to defend the indefensible," Steinberg said.
From Warsaw comes word that the mayor of Jedwabne, the town where Poles murdered hundreds of their Jewish neighbors in 1941, resigned from his post because town councilors failed to support efforts to memorialize the wartime massacre.
The mayor's resignation happened after the July 10 commemoration in which Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski begged forgiveness for the massacre - but still insisted Nazi occupiers were behind it all.
Think about it: Asking for "forgiveness" for an act he still blames on the Germans, in spite of evidence to the contrary!
The Israeli daily, Ha'aretz, reports that flight crews from the Dutch airline KLM will no longer stay overnight in Israel because of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian violence.
Swissair recently adopted a similar policy a few weeks ago - as did Lufthansa and Air France, under shrill protests from the Israelis.
An historical debate has broken out over the Jewish leader Leo Baeck (1873-1956), currently the subject of an exhibition at Frankfurt's Jewish Museum, and his involvement with the Nazi regime.
Baeck was president of the Reichsvertretung der Deutschen Juden (Jewish Council of the German Reich), an umbrella organization founded in 1933 in reaction to the National Socialists' seizure of power. Hermann Simon, director of the foundation for the new synagogue in Berlin, stated that in 1942, Baeck compiled a study for the Gestapo of the legal status of the Jews.
"Baeck was under unbelievable pressure" and was "writing for his life," Simon wrote.
ZGram readers will be happy to learn that it was Leo Baeck and his organization who suggested, and agitated for, the wearing of the Yellow Jewish Star. He was opposed by Dr. Goebbels who anticipated the negative impact the symbol would have in the world.
Marc Ellis is an American Jew who says that if Israelis are going to continue to oppress and kill Palestinians, then they've forfeited their moral right to play victim.
In particular, says Ellis rather smartly and admirably, Jews should "stop talking about the Holocaust". A real brainer, that one!
Ellis is a rabbi with his own congregation in Los Angeles. He is also the author of a book, if my memory serves me right, titled "Why should Jews exist?" I have read excerpts some time ago; I remember it as a book well worth reading.
Arab American activism is fighting back in pockets of America. School officials of Fairfax County, Virginia, a county with a sizable Arab-American and Muslim population, have agreed to remove an ethnically offensive novel from the list of recommended summer reading for the seventh and eighth grades.
The book, autored by Caroline B. Clooney, is titled "The Terrorist" and was published by Scholastic, Inc. The Clooney book is described as a poorly written novel with an absurd plot. It deals with a 15 year old Muslim girl who explodes a bomb to kill a classmate in an effort to escape a forced marriage to a 54 year old man.
German-Americans ought to take heed and retire to the dustbin of history the Anne Frank Diary, long unmasked as a shameless fraud perpetuated by politically motivated, profit-seeking con-men, along with titles such as Elie Wiesel's "Night", his hateful "Legends of our Time" and Goldhagen's "Hitler's Executioners".
Bishop Donald J. McCoid of Pittsburgh, one of the high echelon candidates for an important post within the Lutheran church, was part of a Christian delegation that met with Secretary of State Colin Powell earlier this year. Upon that occasion, McCoid delivered a strongly worded rebuke of Israeli policies, to which the American Jewish Committee responded that it was "terribly unbalanced" and "rather un-Christian."
According to yesterday's Los Angeles Times, the nation's largest Lutheran church has called on the U.S. government this week to withhold all economic and military aid to Israel until it improves conditions for Palestinians.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America passed a strongly worded resolution that stated they were following the words of Jesus to comfort "the poor, the powerless and the outcast."
That resolution, opines the Los Angeles Times, "signals a growing frustration--increasingly aimed at Israel--among the mainline Protestant churches with the ongoing violence."
Good news, that one! The sacrifice of the Palestinians against the backdrop of their ordeals is finally melting the hearts of stone of some of the befuddled and Israel-besotten Christian churches.
Home-schooling parents are flexing their muscle as well. T-shirts emblazoned with a decrepit mobile home and the words ``Home Skooled'' were hastily pulled from J.C. Penney stores Wednesday after outraged customers, who said that the T-shirts demeaned home-schooling, threatened a boycott.
Tim Lyons, a spokesman for J.C. Penney, said he did not know how many of the T-shirts had appeared in stores around the country but they would forthwith disappear.
People Power at work! The voiceless are finding their voices - and are scoring points! The American Silent Majority is stirring!
According to a study released this month by the Education Department, about 850,000 of the United States' 50 million schoolchildren are being taught at home.
And, finally, take heart! This story, referenced as having come from the Knoxville News-Sentinel of April 3, 2001, was picked from a weekly e-mailing of "unusual news stories":
Several days after Moema Furtado's "exhibit" opened in March, municipal officials in Knoxville, Tenn., told her to remove her installation of thin-latex likenesses of large pieces of pulled human skin hanging from walls and ceiling, which she said were "testaments to the horrors of the Holocaust".
City official Mickey Foley said that the exhibit reminded her too much of huge, used condoms - and that East Tennessee was not ready for "that kind of art".