Update on the Zundel Hearings

zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org
Fri Apr 14 07:47:07 EDT 2006




Update on the Zundel Holocaust Heresy Trial - and some reflections on 
historical sea changes

A letter to his long-time French friend, Yvonne:

Ernst Zündel
JVA Mannheim
Herzogenriedstr. 111
68169 MANNHEIM
Germany

4. April 06

I have not written for a while, because of all the legal jockeying 
[in] Sylvia Stolz's case  re "behaviour inimical to the conduct of 
the proceedings."

This morning the mail brought news from the court office that now 
that my lady lawyer, Sylvia Stolz, has been removed by court order - 
the case will continue at high speed. The next dates are :

Wednesday 26 April, 13.30 pm
Friday 12 May, 13.00 pm
Friday 19 May, 9.00 am
Friday 9 June, 9.00 am.

I advise all who intend to participate as spectators or potential 
witnesses to call the Court office:

Landgericht Mannheim
Telephone :   0621 - 292-2668
Fax : 0621 - 292-1314

You have to ask how my case, file Nr. 6 KLs 503 Js 4/96, is 
proceeding - when and where it will be heard.  There usually are long 
line-ups - many have waited for hours and could not gain admission. 
Once they do make it, they are treated like airline passengers and 
are not admitted if they have brought their handy along, even turned 
off !  Inside the courtroom, there are lots of uniformed and 
plain-cloth security personnel in evidence. Therefore, keep all this 
in mind before deciding to make a long trip, as some have done from 
Canada, the USA, even Latin America, England, France, Italy and other 
places.

Keep in mind this is a censored letter, and I am walking through a 
minefield of legal territory and forbidden topics since I am totally 
unfamiliar with these people's rules and regulations.  (Š)  It seems 
that laws and rules, when it comes to Ernst Zündel, are as "flexible" 
and "open to interpretation", regardless to what country's jails and 
prisons I may be subjected to, what legal systems prevail, or 
wherever I am at the moment.  

Thus, I leave behind confused lawyers, speechless and incredulous 
reporters, and a public not knowing what they should think or can 
believe about me, my thoughts, actions, or my life's work.  And who 
can blame them?  It's difficult even for me who, after all, is riding 
this tiger!

Maybe once these proceedings have come to the conclusion my enemies 
have striven so hard and worked so diligently for to achieve - when 
Shylock has received his pound of flesh, to speak with Shakespeare - 
maybe then we can all relax and get on with our lives?

In the meantime, the "other world"- meaning those who either are or 
have chosen to remain blissfully ignorant of what went on in Europe's 
most traumatic and bloody history - are buffeted by the ravages of a 
rampant, cannibalistic capitalism running amok, with jobs and 
pensions threatened, insecurity every time they leave their homes or 
apartments, alienation from their own countries, societies, from 
their neighbours, often estranged from their husbands or wives and 
their children or grandchildren - alienation everywhere! 

Yvonne, I am not just talking about revisionistically inclined 
people.  I see, hear, and feel it even with prison officials, 
priests, social workers, and inmates from wife beaters to bank 
robbers, thieves, conmen and murderers! It is the "Zeitgeist", the 
spirit of our times.

Just at a time when the media reports that the whole world is "wired 
together" and loudly proclaims the "global village",  the real truth 
is that we are the most isolated and alienated, compartmentalized, 
and  manipulated by remote control via spin-doctors in every sphere 
of our lives.  The European peasant, the American frontiersman, even 
the Neanderthal caveman was more connected in reality to his clan, 
tribe, class or neighbours than the modern city dweller in the 
teeming anthills of New York, Toronto, Los Angeles, Berlin or Paris 
is to his millions of city-dwellers!

How often did I have to wait in front of a supporter's apartment or 
house while my friend disarmed his alarm-system connected to the 
local police station or proceeded to unlock [the door] with 
sophisticated triple locks or secret codes known only to him.  The 
more everybody talks about freedom, security and the gentler society 
of Human Rights - the less it exists in fact. (Š)

That's what my experiences of the last three years have taught me 
when I, too, was caught up in what North-Americans call simply "the 
Rat Race" :  to see more clearly than ever before.  Lucky is the 
[man] who has a wife, children, or siblings who care for him, who 
support him and are there for him when the vagaries of life hit him 
and when without such love and support he  would simply go under. A 
friend in need is a friend indeed!

Since this is a censored letter, and according to the arcane rules of 
this country I cannot discuss the actual trial proceedings, you have 
to inform yourself via the usual circles of what is going on and what 
the perimeter are that are still open for my defense.

Naturally - at moments like these one looks for historical parallels 
or similarities in the lives and fates of other people. There are, 
for instance, strange similarities between my career and Gandhi's in 
his early years - not the Gandhi we popularly hear about, but the 
actual Gandhi, the Human Rights activist at the turn of the 19th to 
the 20th century and later in Durban, South Africa, where he was the 
best known defender of the rights of his beleaguered fellow Indians. 
There are all kinds of court transcripts, newspaper articles, records 
of leaflets, speeches, demonstrations, which Gandhi either was 
directly involved in or actually organised and led. The similarities 
therefore are often quite startling. 

Even more surprising are  Gandhi's life and his career after he left 
South-Africa and became politically active in India.  It is 
interesting also to compare Gandhi's persecution in India by the 
British occupation-vassal regime, and what laws and regulations were 
invoked against Gandhi  and his  disciples, especially Nehru.  They. 
Likewise, were considered "agitators" and jailed. Their trials - 
Gandhi was a lawyer, I believe - made them household words amongst 
the Indians who could read.  His and Nehru's fame spread, after the 
British-Indian colonial regime accused Gandhi, and Nehru and his 
friends, of being a threat to "state or national security",  even 
though Gandhi, too, was a well-known advocate of political 
non-violence.  The rest is known to history. 

While Gandhi and Nehru sat in their cells, the outside did not stand 
still.  The Indians organised their self-liberation, dethroned the 
old system, corrupt and beholden to the British military occupiers as 
it was,  Nehru went on to become leader of a FREE India and ran India 
till his death,  being succeeded by his daughter and other relatives, 
almost like through a post-liberation dynasty.

There are many other parallels in other people's lives, some not 
well-known or only known in their countries of origin. In Germany the 
case of Martin Luther, his trials and tribulations, his nailing his 
95 thesis points to the church door, his persecution, having a Papal 
bull issued against him, and his odd "protective kidnapping" and 
[subsequent]  isolation  in the Wartburg, where he accomplished the 
greatest feat of his life, the translation of the Bible into High 
German, thereby giving the Germans one unifying language, which in 
the end shaped German history far more for centuries to come than any 
short term impact his translation of the Bible had with German 
believers.  Thus his persecution and unfair treatment resulted in 
consequences far beyond his own time and place in German or European 
history.

There are other cases.  Take Karl Marx, for example, and Engels - 
hounded for their ideas in Germany, constantly in trouble with the 
authorities of their day, plagued by censors, police interrogations, 
[being forced to flee] to France and on to England - where Marx found 
a far more congenial society, more tolerant of new ideas, and where 
he wrote his famous works ! Did the German persecutors and censors of 
Marx succeed in suppressing his ideas ? Yes -  temporarily ! They 
came to haunt the Germans for 150 years thereafter, with a vengeance 
!  It would have been easier to "dialogue"- i.e., deal with Marx's 
ideas in 1848 peacefully, rather than having to put down Communist 
revolutionaries in almost every country in Europe after W.W.I.  and 
having to deal with the Soviet monster  spawned by his ideas, which 
[led to] WWII  and to the Cold War, lasting another 50 years after !

Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky - all were hounded for their pamphlets, 
speeches, had their meetings forbidden, were banished to Silesia, 
deported, fled into exile - did it stop the spread of their ideas ? 
(Š) The list is near endless - Kenyatta, Castro, Che Guevara, Nasser. 
Most post-colonial political activists-turned-leaders of their 
countries tell an eloquent story - including the story of Nelson 
Mandela's incredible [life].  From "security threat",  convicted 
"advocate of terrorism" and 28 years imprisonment he went from prison 
cell to Prime Minister/leader of South-Africa within a year or two. 

I can't talk about others because this is a censored letter. 

History teaches important lessons !

Ernst Zündel

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