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May 20, 2015

Holocaust High Priests

Holocaust High Priest: Elie Wiesel, "Night," the Memory Cult, and the Rise of Revisionism (Holocaust Handbooks Book 30) eBook: Warren B. Routledge: Kindle Store


EXCERPTS:

As the new millennium began, Holocaust media frauds that had been concocted during the 1990s were publicly unraveling. A man born with the name Bruno Grosjean, who later went by the name of Bruno Dössekker, published an autobiography in 1995 under the name of Binjamin Wilkomirski. Entitled Bruchstücke: Aus einer Kindheit 1939–1948 ( Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood ), the book was so utterly lacking in credibility that it was clear to revisionists from the beginning that it was a botched attempt at deception. Originally published in Switzerland, the book was hyped by the Holocaustian media as a new and important eyewitness account by someone who had been a child at Auschwitz! Fawning reviewers fell over each other comparing this bogus memoir to Wiesel’s Night , while Wiesel, not exactly happy that someone was poaching on his private preserve, kept his distance from the book and did not publicly endorse it. 

Another reason for Wiesel’s negative reaction nto the book was that, as the Zionist media were still hyping it and various Jewish groups were awarding it literary prizes, there was speculation that Fragments would make an excellent Hollywood movie. This was of course a strong slap in the face to Wiesel, since, as is well known, the Jewish moguls of Hollywood have never dared to invest the millions that would be needed to bring Wiesel’s “memoir” to the screen. They maintain a safe distance from Night because they know that the book is toxic. In fact, their rejection of it for the last fifty years offers firm proof that they fear that its lies would be evident on the screen. [593] Wilkomirski hit the jackpot when the Holocaust fundamentalists arranged a national tour for him, including a $150- a- plate luncheon sponsored by the USHMM at a fancy New York hotel. Wilkomirski’s tour featured a personal visit with the emerging Holocaust commissar, Professor Lipstadt, in Atlanta. Meanwhile, in the background, the revisionists were having a merry time of it as they went about disemboweling Wilkomirski’s faux memoir while it was still being treated in the Zionist media with awe and admiration. 

Before long, however, thanks to the revisionists’ revelations, the more prudent Holocaustians began to suspect that there was something seriously wrong with Wilkomirski and his memoir. Slowly, and very late, they realized that Fragments was indefensible. Thereupon, the Holocaustians threw in the towel and admitted that Wilkomirski and his book were complete frauds. Tom Gross, covering the affair after the fact in the Wall Street Journal , asked: [594] What does Deborah Lipstadt, author of Denying the Holocaust , think of the fact Dössekker [Wilkomirski] has become (against his wishes) a hero for Ho­locaust deniers? Professor Lipstadt assigned Fragments to her class reading list, and spent a whole day with “Wilkomirski” when he came to Atlanta as part of his speaking tour.

Gross ought to have added the fact that, even after the Holocaust fundamentalists were obliged to acknowledge that Fragments had been just another Holocaust scam, Professor Lipstadt still kept his book as a classroom text for discussion in her Emory University course on the Holocaust. She later justified her position by stating that it “might complicate matters somewhat, but it’s [the book] still powerful.” [595] For Lipstadt, like Wiesel, emotion and feeling are more important than established fact. Like Wiesel , Lipstadt accepts fiction as historical truth as long as it has the right political spin, that is, posits fellow Jews as victims. Wiesel’s Endorsement Propels a New Holocaust Scam, Misha Misha Defonseca received an important endorsement from Wiesel in 1997 when she published her purported autobiographical account of her experiences during World War II. Entitled Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years , the book appeared in Boston and probably would have gone nowhere except for the fact that Wiesel had penned a publicity blurb for it. 

Wiesel’s statement to the effect that Defonseca’s “memoir” was “very powerful” appeared on the back cover and surely enabled the book to gain traction, especially at the beginning. Another advantage that the book enjoyed was that it recounted Holocaust- related events that had allegedly taken place far away from Auschwitz, which is the Holocaust fundamentalists’ preferred approach these days. Misha claimed to be a Belgian Jew who had been separated from her parents during the war. Just a little girl, she then spent years trekking 1800 miles across Europe on foot in search of them. Incredibly, she claimed that she eluded capture by living in the wild with packs of friendly wolves. In a word, the book was utter nonsense. Misha became a bestseller in Europe, however, and was translated into eighteen languages. 

The Holocaust gravy train was rolling, and the Zionist media got on board. 

The Holocaustians arranged for the book to win an impressive number of literary prizes. The book next became the basis of a French movie called Survivre avec les loups ( Surviving with Wolves ) . It was filmed in a short sixteen weeks in 2006 and released in 2007. From its publication in Boston in 1997 through the release of the film in 2007, the revisionists, just as they had done in the case of Wilkomirski and his bogus memoir Fragments , exploited the burgeoning Internet to mock the book, and then the movie, as a ridiculous Holocaust scam. Then, suddenly, the dam broke. Defonseca, whose actual name turned out to be Monique de Wael, and who was not even Jewish, was forced to admit that the whole story had been a hoax. Her excuse was that, although the story existed only in her mind, it was still true. When the scam collapsed for good in February 2008, there had already been 540,000 paid admissions to the movie, which was immediately shut down and withdrawn from circulation.

Illustration 35: Misha Defonseca / Monique de Wael As for Wiesel, the complaisant Zionist media, including the New York Times and the Washington Post , excused his enthusiastic endorsement of the fraudulent memoir, although it was important to its success. When the dust had settled, a reporter reached Wiesel on the phone and asked about the scandal. He said: “It is sad. It’s just very sad.” He went on: [596] In truth I don’t recall reading it. You see, when I speak with Holocaust survivors, [sic] I am always urging them to write, write, write. 

So whenever I receive a memoir, I am willing to say something about it. But it doesn’t mean I have read every page. Incredibly, “sad” was the most damning word that Wiesel had for this ridiculous Holocaust deception. But what did the Holocaust High Priest mean by “sad?” Was it sad that Defonseca had lied, further diminishing the rapidly shrinking credibility of the Holocaust story as a whole? Or was it just sad that she had been caught? Herman Rosenblat’s “Memoir,” Angel at the Fence , Turns out to be a Novel As a result of the collapse of these two media scams, the Holocaustians seem to have realized that their policy of publishing ridiculous Holocaust horror stories was helping to create cynicism about the Holocaust among non- Jews. 

This growing awareness of their own guilt in promoting the sensationalization of the Holocaust dovetailed with their realization that the explosive growth of the Internet was also sapping whatever credibility the Zionist mainstream media still retained regarding the Holocaust. A policy change was needed, and its implementation became apparent when a new Holocaust swindler, Herman Rosenblat, was just about to cash in with a big book and movie contract. His story, eventually titled Angel at the Fence , had first been publicized by Oprah Winfrey in 1996, when he appeared on her show. Predictably, since it pertained to the Holocaust, Oprah called it “the single greatest love story” she had ever heard. The ridiculous tale deals with two Jewish people who met on a blind date in Coney Island. At the time, they had no inkling that they had met during the Holocaust when she, Roma, had tossed an apple to Herman each day over the fence at Buchenwald. Among the story’s ludicrous details was Herman’s appointment, in advance, to enter Buchenwald’s gas chamber on a particular day – not even Holocaustians claim the camp had such a chamber. As for the camp’s layout, including the location of the Kinderblock , Herman didn’t have a clue. In summary, the story, like Wiesel’s Night , was clearly a fabrication. 

Illustration 36: Herman and Roma Rosenblat The Rosenblats made two more appearances on Oprah’s show in 2007, and the book was scheduled to appear in February 2009. The fix had been in from day one at Berkley Books, a division of Penguin, to launch yet another money- making book and movie project exploiting – indeed trivializing – the Holocaust. Leslie Gelbman, editor and publisher at Berkley, in cahoots with Rosenblat’s editor, Natalie Rosenstein, had cynically exploited their Jewish media power to push this book forward. 

They had also hired a New York ghostwriter, Susanna Margolis, “who polished Mr. Rosenblat’s manuscript.” [597] This need for polish reminds us of, and corresponds to, Mauriac’s involvement in the redaction, or perhaps I should say polishing, of La Nuit . But what these deliberate deceivers did not understand is that, in the wake of the collapse of both the Wilkomirski and Defonseca scams, the Holocaustians were apparently reconsidering the advisability of continuing along this path. By publishing such rubbish, they were strengthening the revisionists’ hand, while also displaying contempt for the non- Jews who were expected to consume these ersatz cultural products. After his story was called into question, Rosenblat stoutly defended it, but did so with Elie Wiesel doubletalk, that is, defended the story’s alleged truth as based on “memory.” He told one interviewer: “This is my personal story as I remember it.” [598] In another interview, he phrased it a bit differently, claiming: [599] I saw things through a young child’s eyes. 

But I know and remember what I saw. What I offer in this memoir are the images, sounds, smells and feelings that have stayed in my mind for some seven decades. A day later the story collapsed when Rosenblat admitted his deception. Then it was learned that Rosenblat’s children and relatives had known that the story was false grandchildren would know of our survival from [sic] the Holocaust. He went on: In my dreams, Roma will always throw me an apple, but I now know it is only a dream. In conclusion, it was only after the smoke had cleared that the Holocaust gatekeepers at the New York Times publicly informed their readers that Holocaustian watchdogs were now trying to prevent the repetition of such egregious scams. The newspaper of record explained solemnly ( ibid. ): Holocaust survivors and scholars are fiercely on guard against any fabrication of memories because they taint the truth of the Holocaust and raise doubts about the millions who were killed or brutalized. 

This statement, with its reference to “the fabrication of memories,” was a major concession to the revisionists, although of course the latter could not be mentioned by name. This new media policy is probably intended to protect grandchildren would know of our survival from [sic] the Holocaust. He went on: In my dreams, Roma will always throw me an apple, but I now know it is only a dream. In conclusion, it was only after the smoke had cleared that the Holocaust gatekeepers at the New York Times publicly informed their readers that Holocaustian watchdogs were now trying to prevent the repetition of such egregious scams. The newspaper of record explained solemnly ( ibid. ): Holocaust survivors and scholars are fiercely on guard against any fabrication of memories because they taint the truth of the Holocaust and raise doubts about the millions who were killed or brutalized. This statement, with its reference to “the fabrication of memories,” was a major concession to the revisionists, although of course the latter could not be mentioned by name. 

This new media policy is probably intended to protect Wiesel, for there is a creepy similarity between Wiesel’s and Rosenblat’s lies. 

But since the He went on: In my dreams, Roma will always throw me an apple, but I now know it is only a dream. In conclusion, it was only after the smoke had cleared that the Holocaust gatekeepers at the New York Times publicly informed their readers that Holocaustian watchdogs were now trying to prevent the repetition of such egregious scams. The newspaper of record explained solemnly ( ibid. ): Holocaust survivors and scholars are fiercely on guard against any fabrication of memories because they taint the truth of the Holocaust and raise doubts about the millions who were killed or brutalized. This statement, with its reference to “the fabrication of memories,” was a major concession to the revisionists, although of course the latter could not be mentioned by name. This new media policy is probably intended to protect Wiesel, for there is a creepy similarity between Wiesel’s and Rosenblat’s lies. 

But since the Holocaustians have invested heavily over many years in order to create and maintain the Holocaust High Priest as a man of unquestionable integrity, he must be protected. In addition, his memoir is a dogmatic text in our state religion. It plays a major role in the Holocaust brainwashing of America’s vulnerable youth. On the other hand, the Holocaustians owed nothing to the grasping Rosenblat, so he could be cut loose. The only question that remains is not if, but when, Wiesel’s inevitable fall from grace will occur. Time will tell. By the end of the decade, the publication and promotion of these deliberately mendacious memoirs had badly damaged the master narrative of the Holocaust. In an apparent attempt to engage in damage control, Ruth Franklin, senior editor at the ardently Zionist New Republic , published a book entitled A Thousand Darknesses: Lies and Truth in Holocaust Fiction. [601] 

In doing so, she broke a taboo by admitting that most, if not all, Holocaust narratives, whether fiction or memoir, contain “lies.” Thus, it would seem, the “scholars who are fiercely on guard against any fabrication of memories,” alluded to above by the New York Times , are wasting their time. Lamely trying to explain away the fact that many prominent Jewish intellectuals, including Deborah Lipstadt of Emory University, had heaped praise on Wilkomirski’s and Defonseca’s clearly fraudulent memoirs, Franklin argues that Holocaust writers have the dual task of remaining truthful overall while also presenting an entertaining story, even if it contains lies on supposedly minor points. She concedes that even Wiesel, whom she calls “by any estimation the most influential Holocaust survivor in America if not the world,” ( Thousand , 5) tells lies. Incredibly, she claims that “the only real challenge to Night ’s credibility as a memoir” came from Alfred Kazin. Why? He did not believe that Wiesel had really lost his faith during the war, as claimed in Night , and he turned out to be right. Franklin actually wants her reader to believe that this is the only credibility issue contained in the novel. 

As for the revisionists, she admits their existence, but dismisses them: “I am discounting the Revisionists, who have leaped like hyenas on each perceived discrepancy” (80) in the novel. The bottom line is that Franklin’s book consists essentially of pious readings designed to reassure the Holocaust faithful of the truth of their religion and of the sanctity of their Holocaust High Priest.


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Holocaust High Priest: Elie Wiesel, "Night," the Memory Cult, and the Rise of Revisionism (Holocaust Handbooks Book 30) eBook: Warren B. Routledge: Kindle Store

Holocaust High Priest: Comments on Shamir Post

Holocaust High Priest: Comments on Shamir Post

May 20, 2015
This is a follow-up to Israel Shamir’s friendly post in response to Frank Scott’s negative comments about my unauthorized biography of  Elie Wiesel, entitled Holocaust High Priest.  

I would like to add a few comments to what Shamir wrote. He statements that his friend, Piotr Rawicz, “knew Wiesel there,” [Auschwitz] and the assurance he gives us that “Wiesel was there” [Auschwitz] are simply not true. 

It is possible, however, that Wiesel and Rawicz could have met at some point, however briefly, after the war, when they had each established themselves as Holocaust camp veterans within just a few years of each other. 

Ravicz published his one and only novel Le Sang du ciel, a modernist work in the surrealist vein, in 1961, and received the Rivarol Prize (awarded to a writer born in a linguistic framework other than French) for it in 1962. Shamir also states erroneously that Ravicz received the highly-prestigious Goncourt Prize, which is not the case. Wiesel published La Nuit in 1958 and he also received the Rivarol Prize in 1963for that work and several other short novels published in the early 1960s. 

Each first novel was translated into English, Wiesel’s as Night in 1960, with another one, by his wife in 2006, which is discussed in great detail in my book. Likewise, Ravicz’s novel was translated as Blood from the Sky in 1964, with another, completely separate, translation in 2004. 

Shamir states that Rawicz spent “four years at Auschwitz, as much as anybody,” yet Rawicz and his commentators actually only make claims for him being there for two years, from 1942 to 1944, when he was transferred to Terezin.     

Rawicz, both in his novel, and in his later life as a literary critic in France, was always very vague, even elusive, about his time spent in Auschwitz. To my knowledge, he never divulged his ID number, date of arrival, block assignment, or other personal information relating to his work duties other than to say he served as a translator while there.  In this regard, his friend, the British literary critic and author of the 2004 translation of his novel, Anthony Rudolf, has written of him: “Rawicz was the first to admit that his experience of Auschwitz was not the worst possible.”

What does this mean? Such reserve is very strange indeed for someone whose career benefitted immensely from his aura as a “survivor.” It also stands in opposition, by its prudence, to the outright mendacity and chutzpah of Wiesel who claimed in Nightto have seen two massive flaming pits in close proximity to the main gate into which dump trucks were unloading living adults (Pit 1) and living children (Pit 2).  

Rawicz’s “silence” about his claimed stay at Auschwitz was such that, before his suicide in 1982, he never described what his life was actually like there. Nor did he ever provide any eye-witness information about the alleged German policy of “extermination” there.  
 Warren B. Routledge

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