December 31, 1997

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

We are ending a year of struggles, upheavals, trials and tribulations - and more internal and external turmoil around the Zundelsite than most of you could possibly have known.

This was the year the censors felt sure that they were going to close down the Zundelsite. And try they did - more often with foul means than fair ones.

The gloves started coming off on May 26-27, 1997 when I was in Toronto, ostensibly to testify to the legal facts of the ownership of my website: how it got started, how it expanded, who ran it, who paid for it, who controlled it content-wise - and, in the end, who owned it legally.

As you all know, the outcome is not yet decided and cuts deep into the nature of a new communication means that centuries will cherish - if only we can keep it from being strangled by those who always strangle free thought and want us to be robots and think as we are told.

I witnessed to all that while being vigorously cross-examined by Canadian government lawyers about what I did for the Zundelsite and what my working relationship was with Ernst Zundel - the man so many people love to hate in Canada for what *he* thinks and says.

As far as I was concerned, it was simple: my admiration and respect for the Zundel message is deep, abiding, and a constant, and since the gods gave me the gift of words, my task is to translate that message to the world.

To do this properly, I had to be close to Ernst Zundel and to be privy to his thoughts and actions. Ernst Zundel told me once in a humorous mood: "When I pee, it's a political act!" and it seemed to me that just about summed up the man. If I could help interpret the essence of this wrestling for the mind of man and for the honor of the German people that is the Zundel struggle, that would be my reward.

The outer trappings of this struggle for the existence of the Zundelsite were grim enough - the opening Tribunal hearings, the fact that I was there in the Toronto courtroom but would not be allowed to speak, the fact that all the Jewish groups and individuals who hankered to pile up on Ernst would be allowed as "intervenors", regardless of their decades-long, publicly (!) expressed hatred and persecution of the man, the filthy ARA, the media jackals, the gangsters of the mind in pinstriped suits, the works.

There were high-profile lawyers from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, the Holocaust Remembrance Association, the Mayor's Committee on Racism and Community Relations, the Canadian Jewish Congress, B'nai Brith Canada - and, of course, Ernst's permanent distraction, Sabina Citron. I stood not three feet from her, and took my time to look her over carefully. She looked old and defeated to me, all hunched and crumpled up, with heavy eyelids and a frozen expression, avoiding all eye contact. All of these people stood ready and poised to bring our stalwart, unrepentant Swabian to his knees. Finally! Publicly! The ritual defamation and public destruction of Ernst Zundel had just about begun.

Who would succeed? Would they? Would we? Could we survive defeat?

Ernst Zundel and his two attorneys fought the encirclement of the thought crime jackals and hyenas on many legal fronts through many sleepless nights and many tense courtroom hours - from Ottawa to Vancouver across the vast Canadian land. It was grinding, costly and mind-bending work. At times it seemed as if the gods themselves conspired against them, as they lost round after round to the onslaught of vindictiveness and twisted rules bent out of shape against one man's determination and sheer independence of spirit.

This Human Rights Commission trial was, and is, a trial that will shame Canada the world over for many years to come. The record will show that, regardless of legal tradition or precedent, not a single substantial decision was made by the Tribunal, or by the Federal Courts, that did not go against Doug Christie and his strong-willed client.

Then, last October came what Ernst has called "Black Friday" when Irene Zundel sashayed in as "secret government witness", dressed head to toe in black, to testify against her own husband. To put it bluntly, she defected. A snap decision. She crossed over. Just like that.

Why? Life is trite, and very tragic, but not without its irony.

It turns out that, in her feverish mind, Frau Zundel had decided that she would run the Zundelsite - right from her kitchen table! You read that in the transcripts.

The story is that it was raging jealousy. The story is embarrassing and sad, and I have no intentions whatsoever to dwell on it, explain, expand, defend or amplify. These things are private and off limits. There will be fallout from this drama, and I intend to let it slide right off my back. I have a job to do and do it well, and that is all that matters.

"Frau Z" has self-destructed. That's all there is to that. Now she is yesterday's news, and there is still a tomorrow.

Of course this was drama and glee. Ernst's enemies, the media, the police, the Commission lawyers and all those Jewish representatives were quite beside themselves with joy by this betrayal and defection out of the inner circles of the Zundel-Haus. During Irene's cross-examination, it was put on record finally what many on the inside knew, but what we, who care about the struggle more than our hopes, desires, needs and aspirations, tried hard to keep where private things belong.

It is quite simple, really: The motives can be found in a tormented psyche, a fragile ego, and no mature and temperate self-control at all.

The transcripts will forever witness to what motivated Irene Zundel to turn against the man who had shown her nothing but kindness, as all of his friends will attest. These transcripts, furthermore, reveal that Mrs. Zundel had excoriated only months before her defection the very Commission, for whom she now testified, for its dubious role in the Zundelsite matter - to no small shock to our opposition.

The record revealed is one of emotions gone wild, of jealousy and rage, vindictiveness and spitefulness. There was no love of cause. There was no adherence to a sacred principle, no matter how loudly professed. There was only a raging desire to hurt, to embarrass, to belittle and, ultimately, to destroy.

Here's what I have to say: Irene Helen Zundel was a brief aberration in the worldwide Zundel operation, and now this irritant is history. The Zundelsite survived; the Zundel marriage did not. That, in itself, speaks volumes.

This past year has been a painful and difficult time for me in that, within the turmoil of a disintegrating Zundel marriage, direct communication between the Zundel-Haus and Zundelsite, the latter seen as the cause of that discord, became all but impossible for all intents and purposes. I carried on my work, regardless. And now we talk again.

It must be said that, in the long run, Irene's testimony, emotion-driven as it was, will be extremely helpful to Ernst Zundel because it allowed him to introduce documents, many of them written by Irene's own hand, into the Human Rights Commission records of the proceedings. In future ZGrams, I will condense and post those records. There are some doozies there!

They will reveal that those who pose as guardians of so-called "human rights" are violators and destroyers of those rights. They are abusers and distorters of those rights. Orwell had his tale pat!

These Human Rights hearings will run at least until June. That is a lot of time. It gives us many opportunities. I have repeatedly urged Ernst to simply let the struggle for the website go in Canada, and I will carry on in the United States where I, as an American, am backed, protected and secure within the First Amendment. Ernst's answer was simplicity itself: "I am the one on trial. The Tribunal refuses to rule on their lack of jurisdiction over a US site. This is a struggle for power over who controls the Internet. I am a pawn. I am their whipping boy. I have to fight. I have no choice. There is a principle. I, too, have rights, feelings - and dignity."

The Zundel team will soldier on. We're steady at the helm. The Zundel defense has yet to call a single witness or a single expert in the case. I expect to be called to be cross-examined within the Tribunal proceedings. There are always three sides to a story. Other witnesses and I are going to round out the picture, and in the meantime, I have nothing more to add.

Now the New Year lies ahead - full of promise and filled with new hopes and magnificent plans. You haven't seen anything yet!

Thus, in summary it can be said that the Zundelsite has survived a turbulent year against powerful and treacherous enemies, from within and from without. It has survived when many thought it would crumble and sink like the mighty Titanic. Not only did it not go under, it has plowed through many an iceberg. We now carry documents in eight languages. We have passed the two million document count. Throughout December, our hits have hovered between 7,000 and 8,000 a day!

Here is my pledge to you as you have pledged your loyalty and your financial support to me: We will expand. Rethink. Refine what matters. And we are here to stay.

For as long as my supporters back me up and my fingers can work the keyboard of my trusty Mac, there will be ZGrams being hurled around the globe; there will be updates to the Zundelsite and thoughts, suggestions and advice out of the Zundel mind. There will be lots of news about the concept "Lebensraum", embedded in the trilogy on which I worked for more than 15 years. It will be vastly more than just a novel and a song. The title is a declaration of resolve - to take my heritage back and move it smack front center stage!

Just stick around the Zundelsite. For as long as America is safe from this talmudic-driven censorship that swirls around this evil myth called "Holocaust", the Zundelsite is safe.

Ingrid

Thought for the Day:

"To lay this groundwork is our task. Our own hopes can aim no further. We must leave some things to be done by those who come after us. Your work will be a signpost for the future, a witness to our great intentions."

(Adolf Hitler, as quoted by Otto Waggoner in "Hitler: Memoirs of a Confidant")

Comments? E-Mail: irimland@cts.com

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