The Reader: A Pernicious Book and Movie

Let's get this out of the way at the outset: Kate Winslet gives a great performance in The Reader and the book is a decent but airy read [if you ignore the premise].

Now let's get on to substance. The basic premise of the book and the movie are deeply troubling. Note that the Nazi camp guard is portrayed as the poor, simple, caring woman.

Are we supposed to feel sorry for her because she could not read and had "no choice" but to be a guard? She could have been a street sweeper. She did not have "no choice."

Furthermore, the book and movie suggests that the perpetrators were poor ignorant people. This is such a misstatement of fact and the author, Bernard Schlink, as a German knows better.

Many of the leading perpetrators had Ph.D.s or were clergy and lawyers. They were well educated and quite literate. [In fact, certain section of the party specifically sought out well educated people.]

Finally, note the sharp contrast drawn by the survivor -- very rich [note the maid, the stretch limo, and the art work] and adament in her refusal to offer forgiveness or absolution -- and the poor guard who has nothing. Who is the victim, according to Schlink, here???*

This is a rewriting of history. It is, simply put, soft core denial. It does not deny the reality or the horror of the Holocaust. Not at all. But it does deny who was responsible.

Because it is so slippery I consider it a pernicious book and movie.

[Thanks to Dr. Leah Wolfson, my -- I am proud to say -- former student and now at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies for thinking this through with me. She pointed out that the book/movie seem to want to suggest that literature is redemptive which we know is not necessarily the case.]

* Case in point: a friend who saw the movie said he did felt really sorry Hannah and was sort of rooting for her.... [granted that this friend is at all well versed in the history of the Holocaust].

President Chavez's Abuse of the Holocaust

edited 9:20 a.m.

Please note: this list is still in formation. If you would like to add your signature to those of the other Holocaust scholars and academics listed below, please contact rafaelmedoff@aol.com

The David S. Wyman Institute is preparing the following letter.

Hon. Hugo Chavez
c/o Embassy of The Republic of Venezuela
1099 30th Street NW
Washington DC 20007
via email: prensa@embavenez-us.org

To His Excellency, President Hugo Chavez:

As Holocaust and genocide scholars, we are deeply troubled by your statement that Israel is carrying out “a Holocaust” in Gaza, and that Israeli President Shimon Peres should be prosecuted for genocide. (Reuters, Jan. 7, 2009)

The Holocaust was the deliberate, systematic mass murder of six million innocent Jews by Germany and its collaborators. By contrast, Israel is acting in legitimate self-defense against Hamas terrorism; has no interest in harming innocent residents of Gaza; and indeed has done its utmost to avoid civilian casualties, whereas Hamas deliberately targets Israeli civilians. Any comparison between Israel and the Nazis outrageously distorts Israel's actions and trivializes the enormity and nature of the Holocaust.

We note that the U.S. State Department, in its report last year on global antisemitism, included “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” as an example of antisemitism. (Sec. 1:7)

We therefore urge you to retract your comparisons of Israel to the Nazis and refrain from making any such comparisons in the future.

Sincerely,

Prof. David S. Wyman
University of Massachusetts-Amherst (emer.)
Author, The Abandonment of the Jews

Prof. Shlomo Aronson
Hebrew University (emer.) / University of Arizona
Author of Hitler, the Allies, and the Jews

Prof. Michael Berenbaum
Director, Ziering Institute on the Holocaust, American Jewish University
Research Director (emer.), United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
President (emer.), Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation

Dr. Paul R. Bartrop
Head, Department of History. Bialik College (Australia)
Author, False Havens: The British Empire and the Holocaust

Prof. Zev Garber
Los Angeles Valley College
Editor, Studies in the Shoah

Dr. Myrna Goldenberg
Ida E. King Distinguished Visiting Scholar of Holocaust Studies, The Richard Stockton State College, NJ
Coauthor, Experience and Expression: Women, the Nazis, and the Holocaust

Dr. Irving Greenberg
Past President, Jewish Life Network
Past Chairman, United States Holocaust Memorial Council

Dr. Alex Grobman
Institute for Contemporary Jewish Life
Author, Genocide: Critical Issues of the Holocaust

Dr. Elvira Groezinger
Institut fuer Jdaistik
Freie Universitaet Berlin, Germany
Author, Die jiddische Kultur im Schatten der Diktaturen

Prof. Susannah Heschel
Eli Black Professor of Jewish Studies, Dartmouth College
Author, Betrayal: German Churches and the Holocaust

Dr. Steven Leonard Jacobs
The University of Alabama
Author, Christian Religious Responsed to the Shoah

Prof. Kevin Lewis
Dept. of Religious Studies
University of South Carolina
Fulbright Senior Lecturer, Islamic Univ. of Gaza, Fall 1998

Mitchell Lieber
Director and Editor, www.Rumbula.org Educational Web Site
(the Holocaust in Latvia) - Chicago, IL

Prof. Deborah E. Lipstadt
Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies
Emory University
Author, History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving

Rev. Dr. Franklin H. Littell
Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Religion, Temple University
Founder, Annual Scholars’ Conference on the Holocaust

Dr. Marcia Sachs Littell
Professor Holocaust & Genocide Studies - Richard Stockton College of NJ
Executive DIrector, Annual Scholars’ Conference on the Holocaust

Dr. Erich H. Loewy
Professor of Medicine and Founding Chair of Bioethics (emer.)
University of California, Davis
Author, Freedom and Community

Dr. Sharon. R. Lowenstein
Author, Token Refuge

Prof. Andrei S. Markovits
Deutsch Collegiate Professor of Comparative Politics and German Studies
The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Author, The German Predicament

Dr. Rafael Medoff
The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies
Author, Blowing the Whistle on Genocide

Prof. Stephen H. Norwood
University of Oklahoma
Coeditor, Encyclopedia of American Jewish History

Prof. David Novak
J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Professor of Jewish Studies
University of Toronto

Prof. Paul Oppenheimer
City College and Graduate Center, the City University of New York
Author of Evil and the Demonic

Prof. Zsuzanna Ozsvath
University of Texas at Dallas
Author, In the Footsteps of Orpheus

Prof. David Patterson
Bornblum Chair in Judaic Studies, The University of Memphis
Author, Encyclopedia of Holocaust Literature

Prof. Robert Jan van Pelt
University Professor, University of Waterloo
Author, The Case for Auschwitz

Dr. Susan L. Pentlin
Professor Emeritus University of Missouri
New Editor, Mary Berg's Diary: Growing up in the Warsaw Ghetto

Prof. Allen Podet
State University of New York College at Buffalo
Author, The Anglo-American Committee on Palestine

Prof. Eunice G. Pollack
University of North Texas
Coeditor, Encyclopedia of American Jewish History

Prof. Harry Reicher
University of Pennsylvania Law School;
Scholar-in-Residence, Touro Law Center
Author, Holocaust Law: Materials and Commentary

Prof. Paul L. Rose
Pennsylvania State University
Editor, Archives of the Holocaust (Vol. XIV)

Prof. Thane Rosenbaum
Director of the Forum on Law, Culture & Society
Fordham University School of Law
Author, The Myth of Moral Justice

Prof. Richard L. Rubenstein
President Emeritus, University of Bridgeport
Author, After Auschwitz

Dr. Mary Todd
Professor of History
Ohio Dominican University

Prof. Kenneth Waltzer
Professor and Director, Jewish Studies
Michigan State University

Prof. James E. Young
Chair, Department of Judaic & Near Eastern Studies, U. of Mass. Amherst
Author, Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust
Member, Academic Council, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

Prof. John C. Zimmerman
University of Nevada Las Vegas
Author, Holocaust Denial


(Institutions listed for identification purposes only.)

Apples Over the Fence: I've Had My Say and I am Done

I have decided that, barring any new major developments , I will not adding any additional posts about this saga. My previous posts and my opeds [here and here] express all I have to say.

York Publishers sounds like a vanity press. It's possible publication of a book based on a fictionalized movie -- that may itself not be made -- will probably gain no traction.

The lesson of this saga comes to us in the words of John Adams and Emmanuel Ringelblum, both of whom I have quoted previously.

These two men, though separated by continents and centuries, cautioned against the need to embellish the truth in any way. Both were referring to seminal events in history, one glorious and one horrible.

Regarding the depiction of America's moment of creation, Adams wrote:

Truth, nature, fact should be your sole guide. Let not our posterity be deluded by fictions under the pretence of poetical or graphical license.”

Regarding the horrible destruction being faced by Jews during the Holocaust, Ringelblum wrote:

We wanted the simplest most unadorned account possible of what happened in each shtetl and what happened to each Jew [and in this war each Jew is like a world in itself. Any superfluous word, any literary exaggeration grated and repelled.... It is unnecessary to add an extra sentence.

Or, as one anonymous Jew wrote in the margin of a questionnaire Ringelblum's group distributed in the Warsaw ghetto in order to document conditions:

FACTS!**

That's the takeaway from this whole matter.

And now.... Enough.


* I am not, of course, referring to the serious historical work on Buchenwald and its sub-camps being conducted by various historians.

** Kassow, Sam, Who Will Write Our History?

Apples Over the Fence: A New Publisher for the Book

It's hard to believe but another publisher has stepped forward to publish Herman Rosenblat's book. I guess they will cut out the story of the "apples."

The publisher praises Rosenblat’s motivations, which they say "were very human."

I just saw a statement in which Harris Salomon, who is going ahead with the movie, saying the debate was all about "an apple." I guess Salomon has not read the manuscript. In it -- or at least in the version I read -- Rosenblat says she tossed apples and other food over for a length of seven months.

An apple?

Apples Over the Fence: Words from John Adams

John Trumbell was commissioned by Congress in 1817 to paint a portrait of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It was hung in the Rotunda approximately a decade later.

When Trumbell was preparing to paint the picture the former president, John Adams, offered him some advice:

“Truth, nature, fact should be your sole guide. Let not our posterity be deluded by fictions under the pretence of poetical or graphical license.”

One assumes, given that Trumbell painted a scene that never happened – there was not a single session in which all the signers gathered to affix their signatures to the document – that Adams did not like the painting.

I watched HBO’s John Adams, which is based on David McCullough’s award winning book, on the plane flying home. The movie takes some liberties with the incident, showing Adams railing against Trumbell for painting a scene that never happened.

In fact, according to McCullough, we do not know precisely what Adams thought, but given his admonition to Trumbell one can imagine. Upon my return home I checked McCullough’s book and found Adams’ warning to Trumbell.

Too bad Adam’s eloquence was not recalled by all the people associated with the recent Holocaust memoir, particularly movie producer, Harris Salomon.

Salomon, who contacted Prof. Ken Waltzer’s deans to complain about the fact that he was talking to The New Republic and who attacked me, is attributing the cancellation of Rosenblat’s book to “the worst kind of censorship.” On his Atlantic Overseas Pictures website he writes:

[W]hat I have learned from my long involvement with Mr. Rosenblat and this project which I have come to love, is that American publishing still suffers from the worst kind of censorship.

Censorship? This was an example of the publishing industry correcting one of its failures and acknowledging a mistake.

To make matters even worse, he goes on to link those who criticized the story with Holocaust deniers and to criticize them for "judg[ing]" actions of survivors.

The documented fact, acknowledged by his critics, is that Herman is a survivor of concentration camps… It is indeed unfortunate that so many remain poised to jump on any opportunity to question the occurrence of the Holocaust, and to judge the actions of survivors of that horrific time in history."

With apologies to Joseph Welch, I wonder has this man no sense of decency?

Apples Over the Fence [13]: Emanuel Ringelblum, the Warsaw Ghetto Historian, Said it Best

During this less than pleasant Apples Over the Fence/ Angel at the Fence controversy, I have often said that there is no reason to aggrandize or exaggerate anything about the Holocaust.

Last night I happened to come across a quote which I have cited a number of times on this blog. It comes from Emanuel Ringelblum, the great Warsaw ghetto historian who created the Oyneg Shabbes archives. [You can read about it and about Sam Kassow's wonderful book on the topic here.]

During the war he wrote regarding the material to be collected in the archive:

We wanted the simplest most unadorned account possible of what happened in each shtetl and what happened to each Jew [and in this war each Jew is like a world in itself.] Any superfluous work any literary exaggeration grated and repelled....It is unnecessary to add an extra sentence.

That is what all those involved in this escapade should have remembered.

Apples Over the Fence [12]: Lipstadt Commentary in the Forward

For additional commentary by me in the Forward on this issue see here

A Danger Greater Than Denial
Opinion

By Deborah E. Lipstadt
Wed. Dec 31, 2008

The news that Herman Rosenblat’s Holocaust memoir “Angel at the Fence” is a fraud has the press buzzing and the publishing world reeling. The book, which the publisher apparently anticipated would be a best-seller, was pulled right before it was to be shipped to bookstores. No one who has paid close attention to the story, however, has a right to be surprised.

I first heard Rosenblat’s story in June of 2007. I was on a bus headed to Birkenau together with other scholars who study genocide. None of them were Holocaust specialists. One passenger began to read aloud from an e-mail he had received about a boy in Buchenwald who was saved because a young girl threw him an apple over the camp fence every day for seven months. Years later, the two met as adults. He learned that her family had been slave laborers in the nearby town. They were posing as non-Jews. They fell in love, married and recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.

Long before my fellow passenger got to the fairy tale ending, I was skeptical. How could a young girl stand at a concentration camp fence without guards noticing? Would a Jewish family passing as Polish non-Jews permit their daughter to wander around near the camp? Could a prisoner go near the fence without being shot? Was the fence low enough for a small girl to throw an apple over?

When the professor finished, I declared, “Fiction. Bad fiction.” Some of the scholars suspected that years of skirmishes with Holocaust deniers had made me a hardened skeptic. After later coming across numerous renditions of the story — which, it turned out, was all over the Internet — and learning that the Rosenblats had appeared on “Oprah,” that a children’s book on the story was already published and that a memoir and film were forthcoming, I felt I could no longer remain silent. On my blog I stated that this story could not be true. The attacks came in quick succession: How could I question Holocaust survivors? Who was I to defame them?

The most vituperative attack came from Harris Salomon, who was making a film based on Rosenblat’s story. In an e-mail to me, he pronounced my opinion “worthless.” He declared that, since he had traveled throughout Eastern Europe doing research, “i may be more of a more of a [sic] holocaust expert then you.” He closed by accusing me of having committed “the greatest sin to the memory of all those perished so long ago.”

In the interim, Michigan State University historian Ken Waltzer, an expert on Buchenwald, had done the research that reporters, publishers and producers did not do. He spoke with historians who knew the layout of this sub-camp and with people who were interned there with Rosenblat. The story was clearly a lie.

The New Republic’s Gabriel Sherman spoke with additional survivors who further confirmed that this was a hoax. Even Rosenblat’s sister-in-law admitted never having heard the story of the girl with the apples, either at the Rosenblats’ wedding or in the 40 years that followed.

In response to the growing scrutiny, Salomon went ballistic. He complained to one of Waltzer’s deans and intimated that he would hold Waltzer “responsible” if Rosenblat’s health suffered because of the questions being raised about his memoir. The publisher, Penguin’s Berkley Books, stonewalled anyone who contacted them.

When Sherman found yet more survivors who contradicted Rosenblat’s story, the whole thing fell apart. The publisher pulled the book. Rosenblat admitted making up the story. Suddenly, Salomon, the great historian, told the press that he was “extremely angry” about being the victim of a scam (although he has said he still plans to make his film, albeit now as an acknowledged work of fiction).

Sadly, Herman Rosenblat overshadowed his genuine Holocaust story with a completely fabricated one. What really happened to him and his family has been lost in his lies.

There are various lessons to be learned from this: Facts about the Holocaust must be checked. Historians should never build their understanding of events based on one story from one person. But Rosenblat had enablers. His publisher, agent and movie producer pounced on his story. Reporters never bothered to check it out. They all seemingly wanted a story that made the Holocaust heartwarming, even though, as Waltzer aptly put it, the “Holocaust experience is not heartwarming, it is heart rending.”

Salomon believed that this kind of “candy-coated message” would reach “Middle America” and “do more to teach people about the Jewish experience during the Holocaust in a way nothing before has done.” Jewish sources also allowed themselves to be co-opted. Aish HaTorah featured the story on its Web site. A Chabad rabbi, whose relatives died in the Holocaust, was swept off his feet by this phony tale and arranged a belated bar mitzvah for Herman, garnering even more publicity for the Rosenblats and himself.

I have spent much of my academic career studying Holocaust denial. But the much greater danger to our collective memory of the event is posed by Holocaust trivialization and romanticization. What the Rosenblats and their enablers did was create yet another obstacle for the remaining survivors to convince others that their stories are true.

Rosenblat claims that all he wanted to do was make people love each other more. The Chabad rabbi probably thought the story would inspire faith. Salomon wanted to teach Middle America about the Holocaust.

These may be worthy goals. But the Holocaust should not be reduced to a means for trying to fulfill these or any other ends. The instrumentalization of the Holocaust, the use of it to fulfill something else, is the ultimate degradation of the event. If Holocaust deniers were smart, they would sit back and let the Rosenblats, Salomons, Berkley Books and the like peddle their wares. Within a short time, no one would know what was truth and what was fiction.

Apples Over the Fence [11]: Lipstadt Commentary on CNN.com

For some comments by me on this story see CNN.com's webpage

December 31, 2008

(CNN) -- I don't know whether to be sad or angry -- or both. The recent exposé of the fact that Herman Rosenblat's Holocaust memoir is a hoax was no surprise to me. From the first time I heard the story of his "miraculous" survival during the Nazi era, I doubted that it could be true.

Rosenblat's claim that, as an inmate in a Buchenwald sub-camp, he had survived because a young girl had tossed an apple over the fence each day for seven months just did not seem credible to me.

The notion that a concentration camp inmate could approach the fence without the SS shooting him beggared the imagination. I could not believe that a little girl whose family was supposedly passing as non-Jews would allow their daughter to engage in such an act.

The fairy tale nature of the incident was enhanced by the supposed reunion of the couple on a blind date years later when both had moved to America. The story was that they discovered each other's true identity and, after a whirlwind romance, decided to marry.

Survivors who had been in the camp with Rosenblat and had kept in touch with him since the end of the war protested that the story could not be true. They wondered why Rosenblat had never mentioned the incident until the late 1990s.

A number of other historians shared my doubts, which I posted on my blog. As one of the first to express skepticism about this, I became the target of attacks from those who thought I was demeaning the Rosenblats.

We doubters could not, however, initially overcome the power of Oprah, on whose show Rosenblat and his wife appeared twice. Credulous reporters, who should have sought some form of verification, kept writing about this "miraculous" event.

The producer who acquired movie rights tried to intimidate those of us who raised questions. He wrote to me saying, "I have traveled all over Eastern Europe for several years in preparation for what will be a major feature film. I may be more of a Holocaust expert than you, even though, I have no title nor university affiliation. What I do know for sure is before I make any statements I know the facts. You simply do not know those facts, and that Deborah, is the greatest sin to the memory of all those perished so long ago."

The publisher refused to let anyone see the book. Public relations people circulated versions of the story urging recipients to send it on so eventually it would reach millions of people.

Slowly, thanks to the power of the Internet and the work of some intrepid historians, the hoax was exposed. The publisher pulled the book. The movie producer cried foul, presenting himself as a victim who had been duped.

This is not the first time such a hoax has been perpetrated. Most of the previous stories have been spread by people who were passing as survivors. In contrast, the Rosenblats were both survivors of the Holocaust. But that fact has now been lost in the shuffle.

What, then, is the danger of these sorts of hoaxes? First of all, they give ammunition to Holocaust deniers. This is a bonanza for them.

Deniers expend great efforts in trying to implant doubts in young people about the veracity of the Holocaust. They spend so much energy attacking Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl" because it is a book that is widely read by young people.

The fact that this "apples over the fence" story has already been published as a widely successful children's story provides the deniers with a great opportunity to peddle their wares.

However, the danger posed by deniers is not the primary reason why such fabricated stories should be exposed. The events of the Holocaust are horrible in and of themselves. They do not need to be aggrandized or exaggerated to be made to sound any worse than they were. They also do not need to be rendered as joyful love stories that make us feel good about what happened.

Both are insults to the survivors and inimical to the pursuit of historical truth. The optimum way of teaching about the Holocaust and presenting its history is, to quote Detective Joe Friday from the old TV show, "Dragnet," "just the facts, just the facts."

What we need, particularly in relation to something as mind-boggling as the Holocaust, are "just the facts.

Apples Over the Fence [10]: Meet the Sleuths Who Helped Expose the Fraud

Misha Defonseca was not saved by wolves, nor was Herman Rosenblat saved by love apples.

Their successes at defrauding the public with their stories of Holocaust survival have been derailed by Identifinders forensic genealogists Sharon Sergeant and Colleen Fitzpatrick. They worked with distinguished members of the Jewish community to expose Herman Rosenblat's fraudulent Holocaust memoire. The result was a careful reconstruction of the true story.

In a world built on information technology, the key to Identifinders'
success was using team building and technology to derive meaningful information from those facts.

Even though there had been an outcry from Holocaust survivors that Herman's story was historically inaccurate and defied their own experiences in the camps, the publisher Berkley Penguin Press initially defended the work based on the idea that no one can argue with someone else's memory. In spite of its subjective nature, however, memory can be tested to see if it is anchored in reality.
Herman's experiences during his life in the camps did not occur in a vacuum. By the time that Herman Rosenblat publicly admitted that his love story Angel at the Fence was a fabrication, he was doing damage control.

By building the context based on what could be documented, we separated fact from fiction. We created a timeline for both Herman's family the Rosenblats and Roma's paternal and maternal families the Radzickis (changed to Rogers) and the Zalctregers.

Aside from his historical inaccuracies, Identifinders found for example that Herman's chronology was not as he stated. Clues from people who had been in the camps with Herman led us to Dr. Ken Waltzer, Professor of Jewish Studies at Michigan State University. Dr.
Waltzer is an expert on the youth who survived Buchenwald and provided Herman's actual history in that camp as opposed to what Herman represented. Waltzer also expanded the team to assemble objective proof that the circumstances at Schlieben did not support Herman's story.

Identifinders meanwhile focused on obtaining evidence on the location of Roma Radzicki Rosenblat's extended family during the Holocaust. The inconsistencies of Roma's part of the story were just as significant but not as prominent.

Most of the Radzickis and the Zalctregers perished in the Holocaust.
But a few of Roma's immediate family survived and emigrated first to Israel, then to the United States. Identifinders traced her remaining extended family to the present day. The clues from the surviving relatives converged on the fact that Roma was nowhere near Schlieben.

None of this would have been possible had Dr. Deborah Lipstadt, Professor at Emory University, not raised a red flag last year on her blog about the truth of Herman's story. Danny Bloom, an author of children's books in Taiwan, read Dr. Lipstadt's comments and took up the challenge after Angel Girl, the children's version, came out in September. He was instrumental in convincing the media that the story needed attention. He also contacted Identifinders knowing we had exposed Misha Defonseca. Peter Kubichek, a concentration camp survivor and author, provided coherent background information that was valuable in understanding how concentration camp survivors viewed Herman's story.

This is just one example of how Forensic Genealogy has become an interdisciplinary approach for discovering the truth behind frauds, as well as for locating DNA references, finding missing persons, determining identity, and provenance.


— Colleen Fitzpatrick

Appples Over the Fence [9]: A Survivor Speaks Out

One of the first people to contact me about the Rosenblat memoir and to emphatically state that this story was false was Sidney Finkel of Tuscon. An interview with him in the local paper can be found here.

Limmud UK 2008: Reflecting on "Truth" and the Holocaust

I am sitting here in the cafe after a busy day of teaching and attending sessions at Limmud 08. It is once again an effort that never fails to impress.

But rather than sing the general praises of the event, I want to reflect on a film, Stealing Klimt I saw today about the Klimt paintings that were confiscated by the Nazis, then -- after the war -- "stolen" by the Austrian government, and finally, due to the assiduous work of the owner's niece recovered by the family.

I must admit when people first began to try to recover their property, bank accounts, and artwork I was a bit discomforted. It was wrong of me to feel that way but I admit to it. As all the attention was focused on material goods it seemed that the tragic loss of life was being overshadowed by the loss of property.

[On some level I had internalized antisemitic charges and was responding to that. But more of that on another occasion.]

One day -- I don't remember what brought about the change -- I recognized I was dead wrong.

Heck, this belonged to those families, why shouldn't they get it back? There's nothing wrong and everything right with their saying: this is mine. It was stolen from me and I want it.

This film relates the unbelievable story of how one woman together with a dedicated lawyer pursued these unbelievable paintings.

More importantly it tells the story of the lowly Austrians who, after decades of successfully claiming that they were Hitler's first victims [and I have a bridge to sell you], were exposed for the culprits that they were.

Not only did they welcome the Nazis with outraised arms, join the SS in droves, and plunder Jews in their midst, but afterwards they claimed Jewish property as their own. If you wanted to get a portion of your property back you had to sign over the rest of it over to the Austrians.

Then they spent decades fighting people trying to get their property back. They lied. They were lowlifes. And they continued to behave that way in relation to this family.

The story is unbelievable and it is factual. It is also well told. The writer is Martin Smith who was responsible for much of the design of the exhibition of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

After a couple of days of being caught up in the morass of Holocaust liars [see under Rosenblatt and Salomon], it's nice to see the truth portrayed so well.

And it's wonderful to be here at Limmud.

Apples Over the Fence [8]: Finding the Real Culprit

Professor Ken Waltzer, in his incredibly insightful statement [see previous post], focused on the role of the purveyors of culture who have tried to turn the Holocaust into a heart warming story.

Among those he cited was Harris Salomon the producer of the film on the Rosenblatts. Salomon, as i noted, in now crying about how he was lied to by Rosenblatt. Essentially he is portraying himself as a victim.

This is what he is now saying to the press:

"It’s unfortunate he told a lie.... The man is tragically flawed, but his story had value.... Obviously, this is a surprise to me. Obviously, I am extremely angry. He let me down professionally and personally. We get used to dealing with people of all stripes in this business. This is the business and the society we live in today, that allows people to lie, but also feeds off people lying and asking for forgiveness."

Those who read Gabe Sherman's excellent pieces in The New Republic [see here and here], know that Solomon contacted the deans at Michigan State University to rail about Waltzer's work on this topic. He managed, it seemed to me, to rattle Waltzer, a fine historian, a bit. After all, not all universities, especially state institutions which are facing hard economic times, will strongly support their faculty in situations such as these. [That's why Emory's support of me, as I recount in History on Trial, is so remarkable.]

Since Salomon is now bemoaning his fate, I thought readers should see how he sang a very different tune about six months ago after I told him that i had serious doubts about the Rosenblatt story.

Compare what he had to say now [I have been lied to] with what he had to say then.

His email to me is cc'ed to Rosenblatt and, I assume, to his agent.

To: Lipstadt, Deborah
Cc: [Email addresses eliminated ]
Subject: Re: deborah

dear deborah,

there is no point in me having an argument with you. i know little about you other then what has been written. i have to admit i have heard some harsh things about you since we started exchanging emails. hothead is a word used by at least two of your peers in the holocaust community.

i am telling you, and i am sure you know, that much of what is written on the net is not true. what is on the oprah site, what is on the aish site, and what is on your blog, are not the words of herman rosenblat and not what is in his book. if you took the time to read the book before ripping something apart perhaps your reputation might be different? in my business deborah that is called slander. i know you have heard that word before.

you are entitled to an opinion. you are entitled to judge the facts. but your opinion deborah at the moment is worthless as you are making statements based on third party web sites that do not contain the words of mr. rosenblat or what is in his book.

is this what you would advise your students at emory?

i have traveled all over eastern europe for several years in preparation for what will be a major feature film. i may be more of a more of a holocaust expert then you, even though, i have no title nor university affiliation. what i do know for sure is before i make any statements i know the facts.

you simply do not know those facts, and that debroah, is the greatest sin to the memory of all those perished so long ago.

with regards,

harris salomon

president

atlantic overseas pictures

I plead guilty to sometimes being a "hothead" especially when something about which I care deeply is at stake, e.g. truth and lies about the Holocaust.

But I did think that Salomon's intimation, as I understood, that it was because of my passion that I was sued by David Irving was a bit over the top.

Anyway, this one-time "expert" on historical truth who tried to silence Ken Waltzer and me -- he did not seem to realize that I have faced far more nettlesome opponents than him -- is now crying about being a victim.

If there is a scoundrel in this story my impression is that we have found him.

Apples Over the Fence [7]: Statement by Professor Ken Waltzer

Professor Ken Waltzer, who did the research that essentially confirmed that Herman Rosenblatt's memoir was fabricated, has issued the following statement. It is exceptional in its sensitivity and its focus on the real culprits in this entire messy saga.

I have learned tonight that Penguin Berkley Press has pulled the memoir, Angel at the Fence, which I and others have been investigating, from publication. Herman Rosenblat has shared the news that he invented the false story with Harris Salomon, president of Atlantic Overseas Pictures, and Harris Salomon has told the publisher. Penguin Berkley Press will seek restitution.

I am saddened by the whole thing. First, Herman and Roma Rosenblat are of course to be faulted for making up a Holocaust love story and seeking fame and public attention, but their lying and dissimulating are actually understandable. Less understandable is the widespread belief in their story – by the culture makers, including the publisher and movie maker and many thousands of others who have encountered it over a decade.

Second, such belief suggests a broad illiteracy about the Holocaust and about experience in the camps -- despite decades of books, serious memoirs, museums, and movies. This shakes this historian up.

This memoir was at the far end of implausibility, yet until yesterday, no one connected with packaging, promoting, and disseminating it asked question about or investigated it. Some actively resisted such investigation and tried to shut mine down.

The idea of a prisoner autonomously going to the fence daily, every day, in a Nazi concentration camp and meeting a young girl at the guarded, electrified fence who was allegedly hiding under false identity with her family in the nearby village and who threw him food beggars the imagination. Prisoners in konzentrationslager could not approach guarded fences; persons in hiding with a primary family group would not risk detection by going daily to a camp where SS guards were concentrated. The actual fence in Schlieben was right next to the SS barracks.

So Herman and Roma overreached and actually demeaned their own Holocaust stories -- Herman forgot his brothers who kept him alive in the camps, Roma forgot her own remarkable and sad family story hiding not in Schlieben but elsewhere more than 200 miles away.

But where were the culture makers on this one? What kind of questions did Penguin Berkley Press bring to bear regarding a memoir about a love story set in a concentration camp? What kind of strategy did Harris Salomon embrace to elevate a candy coated Holocaust love story to bring Holocaust education to Middle America? This was not Holocaust education but miseducation. Holocaust experience is not heartwarming, it is heart rending. All this shows something about the broad unwillingness in our culture to confront the difficult knowledge of the Holocaust. All the more important then to have real memoirs that tell of real experience in the camps.

I want to thank those who have worked with me – particularly forensic genealogists Sharon Sergeant and Colleen Fitzpatrick, and amateur Schlieben historian Uwe Schwarz and his associate Jean-Luis Rey. I also want to thank the many survivors, including Ben Helfgott and Sid Finkel, who put their trust in me and shared their knowledge. Gabe Sherman’s reportage at the New Republic has been remarkable, and there will be more to say in the coming days.

Ken Waltzer

Director, Jewish Studies

Michigan State University

Apples Over the Fence [6]: A New Republic Editor Comments

There is an interesting comment on the TNR website and reaction on the TNR website.

Apples Over the Fence [5]: Publisher Cancels Book

The publisher of Herman Rosenblatt's memoir has just cancelled publication. The book was scheduled to appear on February 3rd. Yesterday the publisher was defending the book. Today it cancelled it and issued this statement:

"Berkley Books is cancelling publication of Angel at the Fence after receiving new information from Herman Rosenblatt's agent, Andrea Hurst. Berkley will demand that the author and the agent return all money that they have received for this work."

According to the story, Harris Salomon, the producer of the film that was to accompany the book, said: "It’s unfortunate he told a lie... The man is tragically flawed, but his story had value."

Salomon now acknowledges that they story is false and is angry about being lied to. Just last week he was calling Professor Ken Waltzer's dean at Michigan State University to complain about Waltzer's talking to the New Republic to express his doubts.

Apples over the Fence [4]: The New Republic Interviews Survivors: Story is Fabricated

Gabe Sherman has followed up on his initial story in the New Republic on Herman Rosenblatt's supposed memoir, Angel at the Fence, with another one detailing extensive interviews with survivors, some of whom were with him in the camp. He has also interviews Rosenblatt's sister-in-law whose late husband, Herman's brother, was with him in the camp.

To a person they all say the story is false. A number of them tried to stop Rosenblatt from telling this story. They could not.

Up until now I have written with great sadness about this whole mess. I still am sad. Sad that other survivors will feel on the defensive about having to "prove" their memories are indeed true. Sad that some people will feel more inclined to wonder if a survivor is telling the truth. Sad that the deniers will use this story as fodder for their argument that you cannot believe survivors' stories.

But, after reading Sherman's latest my sadness is mixed with anger. People tried to stop Rosenblatt. They told it was wrong to fabricate a story. They warned him against it. All to no avail. He apparently loved the publicity.

Some people have written to me asking why they should even care about deniers. "They lie anyway. Why do you care if this gives them ammunition?" I don't care about deniers. They have made their minds up based on lies and inventions. I just don't want to give them any ammunition to convince other people, people not inclined towards denial. Rosenblatt played right into their hands.

This scandal was unnecessary.

Herman Rosenblatt survived the camps as a young boy despite the inhumane efforts of the Germans to work him and other prisoners to death. That's enough of a miracle in my book.

The apples and all the other embellishments should have stayed in the larder.

Apples over the Fence [3]: The New Republic Covers the Story

[Link fixed 3:38 p.m.]

Gabriel Sherman's article on the Apples Over the Fence story is now up on the New Republic website.

Since I am quoted in the article, I want to reiterate two points:

1) I am upset by this incident because it gives fodder to the deniers. It helps cast unreasonable doubt on other trustworthy memoirs and recollections.

2) More importantly, even if we had never heard of deniers and they did not exist, it would be wrong. The Holocaust beggars the imagination. It is beyond belief in many respects. The facts -- as Joe Friday would say "just the facts, just the facts" -- are bad enough. One need not embellish them in any way.

Finally, as I said to Sherman, I find this all very sad. A Holocaust survivor who went through terrible experiences and lost many members of his family has overshadowed the truth of what happened with a questionable tale.

Apples Over the Fence [2]: The Truth Will Out

It has been a bit over a year since I posted my doubts about the Herman Rosenblatt story about having a young girl throw him apples over the fence when he was in a Buchenwald sub-camp. I expressed strong reservations when I first heard it.

Never has anything I posted received as many comments. The number stands at 105 at the moment. I find that remarkable.

Well it looks like the book and the 15 million dollar movie will be out soon.

But that is not the only thing that will soon be out. Some serious historians as well as other historical sleuths have done some pretty serious research on this story. There are also survivors who are very upset about this story. They just don't believe it.

Based on what I have seen thus far, I would say that this story is not exactly a shining example of verisimilitude.

The folks behind these productions [movie and book] will go after the critics with a vengeance. One of them did so to me. He essentially accused me of slander and told me that I really don't know much about the Holocaust and that he knows more....

Seems to me that it is his way of trying to silence the critics.

My prediction is that he won't be able to do so this time. There is just too much evidence to the contrary.

Another really unfortunate circumstance.

Is Blaming the Bankers for the Crisis Like Blaming the Jews?

Ha'aretz carries an important story, one that confirms some of what I feel has been in the air for the last month or so....

A leading German economist said the criticism of bankers about the world financial crisis is similar to Germany's anti-Semitism in the 1930s. Hans-Werner Sinn, president of the Munich-based Ifo economic research institute, told the newspaper Tagesspiegel:

In every crisis, people look for someone to blame, for scapegoats" .... Even in the global economic crisis of 1929, no one wanted to believe in an anonymous system failure. Then it hit Jews in Germany, today it is managers."

Sinn was trying to defend the bankers -- whom I believe actually deserve a big chunk of the responsibility -- by using the Holocaust as a defense. [See my previous post for a different example of trying to get a "free ride" on the back of the Holocaust. This is just as distasteful.]

As the central organization of German Jews pointed out, last time it checked the bankers were not being beaten in the street, placed in camps, or anything else like that. In fact, some of them were getting nice parachutes as they left their firms in shambles.

Ironically, his comments evoked something else in me. Seems to me that for some people "the bankers" is a shorthand for "the Jews" as is use of the term "Wall Street."

Using the Holocaust to scare Jews and get votes

You may have already heard about the email sent to 75,000 Jewish voters that if they vote for Obama they risk a second Holocaust. According to the RNC, this was an unauthorized email sent out by a low level staffer. Read the news release here

The staffer claims that he was authorized to send it out.

I doubt that it went very high up the chain of authority in the RNC because someone would have stopped it and said this is beneath contempt. But what it does show is that some people think that all you have to do is mention the Holocaust and Jews lose their brains.

We saw the same thing when McCain and Palin both referred to a "second Holocaust" in reference to Iran having nuclear weapons. Believe me, the last thing I want is Iran to have such weapons. And as readers of this blog know, I am no fan of Ahmadinejad.

However all these references to the Holocaust are distasteful and are something that should be opposed. You can express absolute opposition to Ahmadinejad having a bomb without linking it to the Holocaust.

It simplifies what the Holocaust truly was and it makes it sound like all you are doing is fishing for Jewish votes.

I acknowledge that it was Jewish leaders who first began to speak of a second Holocaust and to compare these times to 1939. So, on some level, it is hard to just skewer the McPalin team.

The situation may be bad but cheap comparisons to the Holocaust are out of place