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February 16, 2003
This is going to be a very short ZGram - it's been again one
of those days. No, to all of you who tried to call or reach me otherwise:
Ernst hasn't yet been deported. He is still being held in jail, just like
some common criminal, even though, I am now told, this wasn't a criminal
arrest after all. You could have fooled me there!
It was a civil arrest, so they say, and believe it or not,
in a civil arrest there are no rights or protections an arrestee can count
on. None. None whatsoever.
Bizarre, isn't it? If one gets "civilly" arrested,
it's shackles and maximum security jail and lock-downs with searches with
dogs and no Miranda readings? You can't talk to your lawyer, and a man with
a gun can just follow you around in your own house because you missed a
hearing?
I talked to Ernst just minutes ago. Where the buzz in the
media comes from, let's just say that I have no idea.
And, no, I pledge no knowledge whatsoever about what might
be shaping up in Germany - what with the angry demos in the streets and that
high profile Der Spiegel Holocaust trial that seems to be rearing its head
and making people raise their eyebrows. Should Ernst arrive in shackles in
the Vaterland, the youngsters there like him a lot; to them he is a hero.
Some media mavens seem to think Ernst will, instead, be
deported to Canada quickly. I told them that I did not grant elaborate
interviews to hostile media any more. I referred all queries to Mark Weber
of the Institute for Historical Review, but as you know, it is a long
weekend, so I guess nobody will be home.
The other item needing mention is the kind that will make
you stop and sit up. It came from a total stranger. He told me something
interesting that hadn't occurred to me yet. I had always assumed that, with
Ernst's arrest, two triggers might have caused it - maybe two politicians
with a modus operandi itch known as "...you scratch my back, and I'll
scratch your back" - or else, old-fashioned Talmudic revenge.
There is a third angle, believe it or not, that left me all
but speechless. Consider this brief, informative tidbit that happened to
reach my computer:
"I am an attorney and former law professor who
worked with the INS for many years; there is little in the treatment of
your husband that is different from standard INS treatment, except that it
seems to [have] been a little "kinder and gentler". I once
witnessed a ten year unaccompanied minor applying for refugee status
arrested by fifteen INS officers -- number of officers at an arrest seems
to fluctuate with which INS agents want overtime. I suspect local
authorities are embarrassed by this, but they need the money that comes
from having INS in jails."
A dear friend sent me this:
If you see Ernst again, tell him I am so sorry.
We knew they had no justice, and no pity. We knew. And yet
-- it is our failing -- we still expect it from them.
Again and again, if any epitaph be written for our race, it
be that we could not believe they had no justice and no pity
And tell him also, if you can that what he has done cannot
be undone.
They may roar, torture, imprison, and slander but they know
too that what Ernst has done cannot be undone regardless.
Tell him that and may it keep him warm in whatever cold,
dark, concrete cell they choose to wreak their vengeance
May it keep him warm as it does us.
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Ingrid Zundel
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