February 15, 1997

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

I have never seen "Schindler's List." It is one of those films that arouses absolutely no curiosity in me. I heard it is predictable and ugly - a hate fest against Germany and Germans.

It ran in America's cinemas to very mixed reviews. Some writers were revolted, and others took it as the holiests of "documentaries".

This film is going to be broadcast continent-wide at the end of February, and Ernst wants me to rouse the troops and put the thumb screw on the sponsors to let them know that we German-Americans are customers who count - we, too, buy cars, computers, software, soap and groceries. Sponsors offend us at their peril.

Here goes. I am asking for old-fashioned grassroots protest action against this story that maligns an ethnic group. Please check your local TV Guide when Schindlers List will be shown in your area. Check also by whom this vicious anti-German propaganda film is being sponsored in your area - and phone, fax or write to those local sponsors, stores or shops - and make sure you also contact the National Headquarters of large national sponsors.

Apparently, Ford Motor Company is one of them. You can register your protest where it will hurt them most - at the bottom line of their financial statement. Do it before the film is shown, during and after airing. Tell them there are a lot of German-Americans and German-Canadians, their families, friends and neighbors who are sick to death of this blatant Holocaust Promotion Lobby flick! We must show the sponsors that promotion of such intemperate lies and negative stereotyping has economic consequences for the sponsors:

Canadian Ford Motor Co.
PO Box 2000
Canadian Road, ON L6J 5E4
Fax - 1-905-845-0384
Tel: 1 - 905-459-2210

Ford Motor Co USA and Worldwide Headquarters:
Box 1899
American Road
Dearborn, MI 48121
Tel: 1-313-323-9100

Toll free number for Customer Assistance Program for Canada is: 1-800-565-3673 and in the USA it is 1-800-392-3673.
International Ford Corporation e-mail is webmaster@WWW.ford.com

The most important point that Ernst wants me to make is that the Steven Spielberg film is based on a novel. Fiction, by definition, is not fact - and while there is nothing wrong with fiction if it has other qualities, when fiction is peddled as truth, as this book and this film have been peddled cruelly and shabbily by the mainstream media, and when judges sentence skinheads to go and view Schindler's List to learn about "racism", there is something wrong. When teachers take minority and high school classes to see this film to have their students learn about "history" from that maligning propaganda piece aimed at an ethnic group, then there is something wrong.

Ernst has made a TV show on video and several audio recordings for his radio broadcasts pointing out all the distortions, lies and untruths that are embedded in this book and in the film.

Ernst makes the point that the demarcation lines between fiction and fact have been cunningly and deliberately blurred. Even the publishers, or whoever controls the publishers, admit it, albeit indirectly.

To wit:

In the first edition, there was a clear disclaimer reading as follows:

"This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental."

This disclaimer DISAPPEARED in subsequent editions, and if you ask the person in the street, chances are that he or she will tell you that ". . . the book is based on fact. . . " because that is what they have been made to believe by the clever use of black and white film in the age of color, using hand-held cameras to create a "jiggle" effect as though legitimate news reel had been used.

The book is filed under "fiction - Judaica" in libraries. It is promoted, on the other hand, as a

". . . true story based on how German war profiteer and prison (labor user) Oskar Schindler came to save more Jews from the gas chambers than any other single person during World War II . . . "

and since even in this brief description you can detect a lie, it is not difficult to draw your own conclusions about the rest.

Tomorrow more on "Schindler's List" as seen from the perspective of a novelist, yours truly.

Ingrid

Thought for the Day:

"It is easier to denature plutonium than it is to denature the evil spirit of man."

(Albert Einstein)

Comments? E-Mail: irimland@cts.com

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