June 21, 1996

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:




Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

I don't remember if I read or heard this story, but it is worth repeating to illustrate this morning's missive. A teacher introduced percentages to fourth graders during the Hilter years by assigning the following word problem:

A desperate farmer needed to take out a loan. A Jew approved $400 at 11%per year. The loan is for three years. Calculate how much the farmer has been robbed.

Aha! yelps the professional ankle-snapper. Gotcha!

Against that backdrop, consider this one that a reader sent me last week:

. . . the French Education Minister named Bayrou has gotten into the act of Holocaust Denial, albeit through the back door and only under duress.

It is reported that he has started disciplinary proceedings against a chemistry teacher who asked her class on a test to calculate how much carbon monoxide was needed to kill Jews during the 'holocaust.'

The question read: 'Hitler killed Jews by locking them in trucks with the exhaust fumes led inside. With a truck volume of 50 cubic meters, what volume of carbon monoxide does it take to reach the fatal ratio of five per 1,000?

If people took on average 20 minutes to die, what volume of carbon monoxide did the engine produce per hour?'

Bayrou said on a radio interview that he has "launched proceedings and that will no doubt be accompanied by a suspension while we wait for the disciplinary board to intervene."

Gross? Of course it is.

Said Bayrou:

"There are facts which we cannot speak about in a banal way, which belong to the memory of humanity and which must be respected as sacred. It is intolerable to raise them in this way."

The teacher, who reportedly is a Jew-imagine if the teacher had been a Revisionist!-is said to have claimed that she had given the same test in recent years and her purpose was to denounce the "holocaust" and revisionist theories about it.

As a psychologist who specialized in pedagogy, of course it is of interest to me how indoctrination is applied to the young, impressionable mind-be it for good or for evil. And as a novelist, I tried to illustrate how it is done. Here is my artistic rendition against the backdrop of a German family trapped inside Russia during the early Stalin years. The setting is a classroom, where a German child is systematically alienated from, and made ashamed of, her own ethnic past and the values that go with that past:

The leader of the Pioneers gave Mimi a white blouse, a red scarf and a little bag of sugar cubes, along with firm instructions: 'Here is a notebook, a pencil, and a ruler. D is for duty. K is for kulak. I expect you to distinguish yourself by reporting to us what you hear'.

'Of course I will', said Mimi, cut from the cloth of an obedient clan.

She was living among the pariahs. Their dogma, the germ of corruption; their monarchist views were well known. She was impatient with their ways. She thought them tiresome and silly, composed of little else but useless sentiment. Their folkish view were foolish evidence of an archaic way of life, and dangerous as well-more so as time went on.

The Party lent her graphic words she could respect and use. A giant squid, religion. Like slime on naked flesh.

She kept her tongue in check, careful not to offend.

Since she was lithe and limber, she learned to walk on egg shells all the time. She was submissive in her character and did not like to cause her family hurt feelings. She wanted to placate and please, but on the other hand, she had respect for goals the Party proffered her on which to mold herself.

The teacher raked thin fingers through her graying hair and asked repeatedly: 'Who's our model? Our hero? Who is the most beloved man who ever walked this earth?'

'Comrade Stalin! Comrade Stalin!' chorused Mimi, along with forty other children, thus paying homage to her country's foremost citizen--a cagey bantam, full of crow, a man who, even though he stood a mere five feet in height, had energetically replaced the sluggish czars, bewhiskered and corrupt.

Students like Mimi were at a premium. She was like a blotter, absorbent.

'We thank thee, Comrade Stalin, for a happy childhood', recited Mimi, striving to be mannerly. She filled three notebooks with that theme. She wrote with even pen:

'He is tomorrow's ruler of the universe, the master of the masses. The fate of every citizen is resting in his hand. He does not wish us to be caged in by outdated beliefs. He is the magnet; we are the filings. He will level the rich and raise up the poor. He strives for a state built on reason. He is preparing for world revolution.'

Lest she forget how much she owed to him-the man who chased the past away and spelled it out for her whom she must hate and love-she had installed his picture over her bed, to be reminded of her duties daily. He was a genius, she knew. The teacher told her so.

'He and the Russian citizens are one', she finished with a flourish, although the ink was watery, the blotter soaked with blotches. 'They will never abandon each other.'

She was ten years of age, earnest and thoroughly informed. She knew who harmed the country, who was above reproach. The God of yesterday had been a tyrant. A forward-looking citizen was free.

She signed her name to everything, for she was eager to do battle for her Party. She sang the Internationale as gustily as possible and believed that all people were brothers.

Her body grew muscle from handstands and backflips. She fastened her eye on a diligence medal. She wrote: 'From each according to his skill, to each according to his needs.'

The teacher gave her several sidelong glances. She looked like a stork that was digging for frogs.

'Now, little citizen. Yet one more time. Speak up and answer boldly. Where does the Bible now belong?'

'Atop a compost heap.'

What you just read is called the New World Order. It has already had a trial run in Russia.

Ingrid


Thought for the Day (paraphrased):

"A politician is a person who pulls habits out of rats."



Comments? E-Mail: irimland@cts.com

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