Copyright (c) 2001 - Ingrid A. Rimland


ZGram: Where Truth is Destiny

 

March 6, 2001

 

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

 

This ZGram concludes the summary about the five-year Human Rights Tribunal circus around the Zundelsite:

[start]

The purpose of the Canadian human rights proceeding was not to stop what was being said by Ernst Zundel because what Zundel said was being said by many more prominent people around the world. The purpose of the proceeding was to persecute Zundel because he was a German and he said these same things.

Professor Raul Hilberg recently stated: "There is one taboo in Germany: Germans must not attack Jews. That is the reason why such coverage is given to a Jew [Norman Finkelstein] attacking another Jew. But only when this taboo is broken will Germany be really emancipated." (Berliner Zeitung, September 4, 2000)

Ernst Zundel was perhaps the only ethnic German of public prominence who had used the terms "Holocaust Industry" and "Holocaust Lobby" in his publications and accused it of running a Holocaust racket. As such, he had broken the taboo of Germans criticizing Jews. The proceeding before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal was the result.

No Jew would have been charged with inciting "hate" for using those terms. Many Jewish authors had used the terms for twenty years in a highly negative manner against their co-religionists.

The entire case against Zundel was one that seethed with anti-German bigotry and hatred. The bottom line: Germans criticised Jews only at risk of being smeared as "hate mongers," mercilessly persecuted, ritually defamed and ultimately destroyed. This was not about the violation of Jewish "human rights." That was merely the pretext. It was really a demand for a monopoly on debate and opinion by The Holocaust Industry on the very history of an era, World War II.

The Holocaust as Religion:

The Canadian Human Rights Commission complained that the Zundelsite stated that the Holocaust had become a quasi-religion complete with its own high priests such as Elie Wiesel and shrines and that this type of statement incited hatred against Jews.

But prominent Jews, among them rabbis, had also made this same point. It had been discussed in books such as Marc Ellis' "Beyond Innocence and Redemption: Confronting the Holocaust and Israeli Power", Michael Goldberg's "Why Should Jews Survive? Looking Past the Holocaust toward a Jewish Future" and Peter Novick's "The Holocaust in American Life", all of which were widely reviewed in the American and British press. The Zundel defense filed at the hearing a large binder of materials on the issue including excerpts from the books and the many reviews which followed their publication.

Novick wrote about the increasing "sacralization" of the Holocaust in the introduction to his book:

"One of the things I find most striking about much of recent Jewish Holocaust commemoration is how 'un-Jewish' - Christian - it is. I am thinking of the ritual of reverently following the structured pathways of the Holocaust in the major museums, which resembles nothing so much as the Stations of the Cross on the Via Dolorosa; the fetishized objects on display like so many fragments of the True Cross or shin bones of saints; the symbolic representations of the Holocaust - notably in the climax of Elie Wiesel's Night - that employ crucifixion imagery. Perhaps most significantly, there is the way that suffering is sacralized and portrayed as the path to wisdom - the cult of the survivor as secular saint." (p. 11 of book)

The "Holocaust in American Life" was massively reviewed by newspapers in both North America and Europe. His themes were repeated endlessly in various reviews. The New York Times (August 17, 1999) reviewer wrote:

"[Novick] dismissively refers to ..'Holocaust-memory professionals'. He argues that there are no 'useful' lessons to be drawn from the Holocaust, and he suggests that the high level of Holocaust awareness in American society stems in large measure from decisions made by Jews who 'occupy strategic positions in the mass media' -- remarks that echo assertions made by revisionist historians who play down the Nazi crimes of World War II." ("Taking Aim at the Symbolism of the Holocaust" by Michiko Kakutani)

Michael Goldberg, the Founding Rabbi of Congregation Lev Chadash in Los Angeles, was described in his book as "one of the leading Jewish theologians and ethicists in America." He referred to the Holocaust as a "cult". He wrote:

"As the Holocaust has become many contemporary Jews' master story, so, too, its perpetual observance has become their paramount Jewish practice, its veneration their religion. And as with any organized church, this Holocaust cult has its own tenets of faith, rites, and shrines."

Goldberg wrote that there was no doubt that "the Holocaust cult's High Priest is Elie Wiesel. His blessing is sought for every Holocaust museum and memorial, from the local hamot to the central hechal in Washington....Wiesel has found that being High Priest is not without its benefits.. Lionized by Jews and non-Jews alike, he can command five figure fees for his speaking engagements, to which he has been known to fly by private plane." (at p. 59) "Nor has Wiesel ever publicly preached the cult's core gospel -- 'No silence ever again in the face of evil!' -- to some of those who need to hear it most: Jews who stood by and said nothing as Palestinians during the intifada were beaten, tortured and worse." (p. 59) "...the priests of the Holocaust cult seem to be whipping themselves into ever greater frenzies: a new, highly praised museum in Washington, a new, highly acclaimed movie in Hollywood, a slew of new, highly publicized exposés of Holocaust deniers." (p. 61) "But civil Judaism has discarded the God and disregarded the way, regarding only the community's survival as important. Civil Judaism and its Holocaust cult have become quite literally self-serving. And that may be the most dangerous worship of all - as the Holocaust cult's devotees should know better than anyone else, given the terrible powers unleashed by such idolatrous worship fifty years ago." (p. 62)

Contrast the complained-of words in the Zundelsite:

"The 'Holocaust,' first propagandized as a tragedy, has over time deteriorated into a racket cloaked in the tenets of a new temporal religion -- replete with martyrs to the Faith, holy shrines, high priests like Wiesel and Goldhagen and theologians of the Faith such as Raul Hilberg, Deborah Lipstadt et al."

There was virtually no difference in the type of allegations made in the Zundelsite and those made by Goldberg and Finkelstein.

Goldberg's book was extensively reviewed in serious journals and newspapers such as Commentary (March, 1996), the Washington Post (August 20, 1995), Jewish Exponent (December 15, 1995), Moment (June 30, 1996), the Jerusalem Report (January 25, 1996) and the Canadian Jewish News (February 8, 1996).

The reviewer of the book in the Canadian Jewish News did not think calling the Holocaust a "cult" with "high priests" and "shrines" was hate. The reviewer wrote: "This outspoken and challenging volume raises profound and necessary questions. Goldberg, however, weakens his arguments by excess and overstatement." It appeared that when a Jew and rabbi, Michael Goldberg, made such allegations his only sin was "overstatement", not "hate" and that his arguments raised "necessary questions." But when a German, Ernst Zundel, made the same points, his very life was put in danger.

The Jerusalem Report reviewer of Goldberg's book wrote that it was "dazzling" and "impassioned" in its description of the "Holocaust Cult". The reviewer went on:

"Like cults in ancient times, this one has its shrines: Yad Vashem and the proliferating Holocaust memorials and museums cropping up across the U.S....Like all ancient cults, the Holocaust Cult has its High Priest, Elie Wiesel, whom Goldberg charges has never once publicly questioned the wisdom of spending so much money on Holocaust memorials. Nor has he preached against silence in the face of evil 'as Palestinians during the intifada were beaten, tortured and worse.' But then Goldberg admits that it may be ridiculous to 'expect priests to confront their cults' rationale and practice' -- especially when they profit by their status, as Wiesel clearly has done."

Marc Ellis, in "Beyond Innocence and Redemption", discussed the development of a "Holocaust theology," which he decried. Ellis quoted Jewish essayist and novelist, Phillip Lopate, who wrote concerning the word "Holocaust": "Then, too, one instantly saw that the term was part of a polemic and that it sounded more comfortable in certain speakers' mouths than in others; the Holocaustians used it like a club to smash back their opponents...Sometimes it almost seems that 'the Holocaust' is a corporation headed by Elie Wiesel, who defends his patents with articles in the Arts and Leisure section of the Sunday Times." (p. 33)

Ellis wrote that the Holocaust had become a way of obtaining money and support from Germany and other countries based on guilt:

"The 'Jewish monopolization' of the Nazi experience was also welcomed by Jewish leadership in Israel and in the Diaspora, as a way of strengthening German guilt consciousness, thus continuing and increasing the amount of compensation payments for survivors, and as a way of mobilizing world support, moral, political, military, and financial, for the Jewish state. For Evron, this new and creative policy of inducing moral guilt was a prime reason for the Eichmann trial. It shifted the policy of Germany as well as that of other countries; it lifted the tragedy out of the past and made it a basis for future preferential relationships. And as importantly, this policy became a blueprint for relations with most Western Christian states, especially the United States; they were to support Israel on the basis of guilt rather then self-interest." (p. 16, Holocaust Controversies; p. 36 of book)

Ellis also pointed out that "The Holocaust can also be used as a powerful tool by Israeli and Jewish leadership in the United States to organize and police the Jewish community." (p. 36)

In Israel, Efraim Zuroff in an article published in the Jerusalem Post (August 15, 2000), denounced the political misuse of the Holocaust and admitted that "the memory of the Holocaust has for most of us become extremely powerful, almost to the point of sanctity or inviolability." It had become, he wrote, "more than ever the holiest of our sacred cows."

After the publication of Norman Finkelstein's book, a number of reviewers drew attention to the unhealthy obsession with the Holocaust and its elevation to a quasi-religion. Anne Applebaum wrote in the Sunday Telegraph (July 16, 2000):

"By turning the memory of the Holocaust into an almost religious fetish, by refusing to debate its history or to compare it intelligently with other mass murders, by assigning blame to entire nations, we turn both the victims and the perpetrators into symbols, robbing them of their humanity. We also rob ourselves of the only real justification for the museums and memorials and university courses: the ability to understand how it actually happened, and how it could happen again."

The theme of the Zundelsite that the Holocaust was a quasi-religion cloaking criminal acts of Israel and defying all rational investigation was one that obviously found resonance in the above-noted books and articles. It was used like "a club to smash back their opponents" said Ellis, quoting Lopate. It was a "cult" said Goldberg. It was a "sacred cow" said Zuroff.

One cannot say that Jews can make these observations but a German cannot. The position of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, a federal government agency charged with safeguarding the human rights of all in a multicultural society, amounted in fact to a racist double standard -- one applied against Germans and another applied for the protection of Jews.

The Canadian Human Rights Commission alleged that the Zundelsite documents were "hate" because they portrayed Jews as responsible for the humiliation of Germans.

The Zundelsite passages complained about included the following:

"Or is it not rather to keep the Germans in perpetual mental, political, economic and financial bondage and to make them susceptible to ever new, thinly disguised blackmail schemes which have extorted over 100 Billion DM out of them for the Holocaust Lobbyists and many members of their tribe, institutions and organizations -- not to forget the state of Israel, a state which did not even exist at the time of the alleged crimes that were supposed to have been committed by the Nazis? Could it be also about political influence and advantage, both domestic and foreign, that those who can claim 'victim' status can amass by exploitation of the 'Holocaust'? The ethnic abuse of Germans and Germany must stop. The Holocaust is not, and never has been, about this touted 'Jewish victimhood.' It is about extortion. Power politics. And money and revenge and hate." (Exhibit HR-19, Tab 25)

The humiliation of the Germans by the Holocaust accusation and its use as a political weapon has become the topic of a major intense global discussion during the past few years. As Norman Finkelstein pointed out in a major article in The Index on Censorship (2000), its uses were long ago articulated by Israeli writer Boas Evron who observed that "Holocaust awareness" is actually "an official, propagandistic indoctrination, a churning out of slogans and a false view of the world, the real aim of which is not at all an understanding of the past, but a manipulation of the present."

Few non-Jews, other than Ernst Zundel, have been courageous enough to make the same statements. One other prominent German who took the same step, however, was novelist Martin Walser, using only more "literary" or elegant phrases than Zundel. During an acceptance speech for Germany's top literary award, Walser stated that Auschwitz should not become "a 'routine threat, a tool of intimidation, a moral cudgel or just a compulsory exercise.'" He complained of the "political instrumentalization" of the Holocaust and a "Holocaust industry." The essence of his criticism was exactly that of the much reviled Zundel.

The journal "The National Interest" reported in its Summer 2000 issue that Walser had emerged "to champion German national pride" and that Walser was part of a new intellectual Right that maintained that the Holocaust "has been wielded as a 'moral cudgel' by foreign powers to shame Germany." The article reported:

"There is not a moment, Walser declared, when Germany's historical burden is not waved in front of it, that a 'moral club' is not wielded against it, that the past is not 'instrumentalized' by foreign powers intent on exacting reparations from Germans. Responding to Walser in the Frankfurter Allgemeine, Bubis [then leader of Germany's Jewish community] noted, 'I have always said that when [neo-Nazi leaders] say something like this, then no person is interested. It has no effect. But when Martin Walser says it, then it has a totally different effect.' Bubis was correct. Soon enough, others began to question the taboos of the past."

The publication by Harvard professor Daniel Goldhagen of his book "Hitler's Willing Executioners", in which he said that Germans participated willingly in the extermination of Jews, was denounced by such historians as Professor Raul Hilberg, who had testified against Zundel in his 1985 "false news" trial. A 1997 profile of Hilberg published in the Jerusalem Post (March 27, 1997) revealed Hilberg's opinion on the book:

"[Hilberg] bristled as the notion that when massive public attention comes, it comes to Daniel Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners. A bestseller on two continents, the book recounts, in detail, atrocities committed by 'ordinary' Germans. Goldhagen's work is a paradox - wildly popular among the public, but roundly criticized by historians, including Hilberg, who has called the book a 'regression of at least 50 years.'

'I wondered whether my efforts, the efforts of many other people, to depict events in a context with care had all failed if such a book could elicit such sales and such responses,' Hilberg said in a radio interview.

"I looked at the reviews. They were written virtually all by Jews -- and they reminded me of a certain kind of writing of the 1940s. It was 'Hate Germany Week' when that book came out.' It was as if Harvard University, where Goldhagen teaches, and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, which sponsered a symposium on Goldhagen's book had 'given permission' to say: 'Yes, we hate these Germans. They hate us, we hate them,' Hilberg said."

Hilberg said the Jewish community today had a "blank cheque" so that "we are suddenly allowed to hate Germans or the Swiss."

The words of the Zundelsite expressed opinions no different from that of Martin Walser and Raul Hilberg. The "Holocaust" had in fact become exactly what Zundel, Walser and Hilberg deplored - an instrument, a cudgel, a blank cheque, for humiliating the German people and subjecting them to hatred.

Conclusion:

The proceeding against Ernst Zundel before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal was a consequence of the failure of the leadership of Canadian Jewry to face what was happening in the real world and the failure of the Canadian Human Rights Commission to recognize that other ethnic groups had the same right in Canada as Jews to participate in historical and political commentary and debate.

The Jewish organizations arrayed against Zundel live in the world described by Marc Ellis in this book "Beyond Innocence and Redemption" where the Holocaust is an ahistorical event that "exists without historical reference and thus has become indefinite and movable." Ellis quoted with approval the conclusions of Jewish writer Boas Evron who warned Jews about the consequences of making the "Holocaust" an ahistorical event rather than a historical event subject to historical investigation:

"Evron concludes that Israeli and Jewish leadership, caught up in an ahistorical world, threaten to become victims of their own propaganda. They draw on a bank account continuously reduced by withdrawals. As the world moves on there are fewer who remember the Holocaust, and those who do, including the Jews, become tired of it as a nuisance and a reflection of a reality that does not exist: 'Thus the leadership, too, operates in the world of myths and monsters created by its own hands. It has created this world in order to maintain and perpetuate its rule. It is, however, no longer able to understand what is happening in the real world, and what are the historical processes in which the state is caught. Such a leadership, in the unstable political and economic situation of Israel today, itself constitutes a danger to the very existence of the state." (p. 17, Holocaust Controversies; p. 38 of book)

The Jewish organizations before the Tribunal were trying to create in Ernst Zundel through ritual defamation and accusations of being a "hate monger" and spreader of Internet "hatred", a "monster" to use to maintain and perpetuate their own influence and rule over the supposedly frightened Jewish community and public opinion generally. This was and is a disastrous course. What Ernst Zundel and the other writers impugned before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal have been saying has been said other times by far more influential people all over the planet and the intensity of this discussion of the Holocaust issue is increasing, not decreasing. Norman Finkelstein's book is a testament to this increased global debate. It serves no good purpose to continue to demonize Ernst Zundel for saying what others say except to raise funds on the back of Ernst Zundel, and solidify the political power of the Jewish organizations in Canada. It does not help ordinary Jews, nor Canadian society.

Taxpayers were left holding the bill from the expert witnesses such as Ian Angus who received over $25,000 for his testimony. Dr. Gary Prideaux received over $10,000.00 for appearing as a witness. Transcript costs approached $20,000.00 for about 9,000 pages of testimony. A huge part of the cost was the bill from McCarthy Tétrault, the large Toronto law firm retained by the Commission to prosecute the case. Total costs of the hearing for the taxpayer were over $400,000.00.

Zundel himself was forced to pay for his own legal defence with no assistance except from his loyal supporters. It was a lonely and debilitating battle of one man for freedom on the Internet and for the honor of the German people.

Mordecai Briemberg, in an insightful article describing the persecution by the Canadian Jewish Congress of Dr. Ruth Birn, a researcher with the War Crimes Unit of the Department of Justice in Canada ("Canadian Dimension" May 15, 1998) asked important questions regarding the state of intellectual freedom in Canada on the topic of Holocaust scholarship. Birn's sin had been her association with Norman Finkelstein in a book criticizing Daniel Goldhagen's book "Willing Executioners." Briemberg directed his words to those who would normally speak out for freedom of debate:

"Where is their courage to speak publicly when the substantive issue is Zionism, Holocaust scholarship and explanations for Nazi extermination policies? Are they prepared to consign these vital events to one political organization for their 'official' public account? Are they prepared to abandon to public pillory, intimidation and unemployment those whose scholarship and integrity does not serve that political organization's agenda? There have been voices so eloquent and animated when persecution comes from proclaimers of other political orthodoxies. Where are you now?"

One might ask the same question with respect to Ernst Zundel. Where were those in Canadian society who cared about freedom? Where were those who cared about truth?

In the end, all efforts by Zundel to stop the proceedings through judicial review in the Federal Court of Canada failed. The fact that the tribunal before which he found himself had been found to be a systemically biased tribunal by the Federal Court of Canada in another case was held to be irrelevant since he had not objected to the bias at the start of the proceedings. The fact that tribunal member Reva Esther Devins had been discovered to have been sitting on the Ontario Human Rights Commission in 1988 when it issued a press release denouncing Zundel and "applauding" his conviction for false news was held not to be evidence of bias. The word "telephone," it was held, should not be restricted to ordinary, dictionary meanings and it was "rational" that the word might also include computer networks such as the Internet. The courts held that the fact that Zundel could call no evidence of the truth of the statements on the Zundelsite was something he could only complain about after the hearing was over and he was convicted.

But, as usual, truth has a funny way of always coming out.

Just prior to the final arguments in the Zundel case, in February of 2001, an article appeared in the Toronto Star (February 8, 2001), one of Canada's major newspapers, with a large headline stating: "Holocaust 'extortion' decried." It was an article about Norman Finkelstein's book and its recent publication in Germany. It quoted Finkelstein saying to a packed press conference in Berlin:

"It is German's right to reject the use of the Nazi Holocaust as a weapon for political and economic gain. The Nazi Holocaust has long ceased to be a source of moral and historical enlightenment. It has become a straight-out extortion racket. The main fomenter of anti-Semitism now is the Holocaust industry with its ruthless and reckless extortion tactics."

Ernst Zundel could not have said it better.

History will judge that the final moral victory was his.

[end]


Thought for the Day:

"If anyone ever asks me my opinion of Ernst, I'll answer: "He put the 'human' back in 'human being'."

(Letter to the Zundelsite)


Back to Table of Contents of the March 2001 ZGrams