- "Why would any writer make up stories about the
Holocaust?" asks Melissa Katsoulis on mainstream British media outlet
The Independent(1).
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- Katsoulis has recently published a book about the history
of literary hoaxes. She is interested in particular in a unique fictional
genre; namely 'the Holocaust hoaxers'.
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- On the one hand, she confesses that "special privilege
must be given to those increasingly few witness-writers who survived the
Second World War in Europe." She is even willing to accept Elie Wiesel's
peculiar take on 'truth and fiction', that "some stories are true
that never happened."
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- On the other hand she says, "those memoirists who
think that they can pretend they were there when they weren't ought to
remember that hijacking the experiences of others for selfish ends will
only end in ignominy."
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- Katsoulis suggests that perhaps what "readers seek
in trauma stories is akin to what people look for in pornography: something
edgy they have never seen before, followed by a spectacular resolution".
Very much like the case of pornography, the dedicated audience of Jewish
pain "want to identify (safely) with what they are reading; to try
on someone else's crisis for a while and see how it compares to their
own."
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- Katsoulis' reference to 'pornography' is indeed interesting
bearing in mind that, at the time of the Eichmann Trial in Jerusalem (1960's),
a new genre of S&M pornography namely Stalagemerged in Israel. It was
a short-lived, highly sexualised fictional magazine that drew its imagery
from Nazi exploitation of inmates in prisoner camps.
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- However, Katsoulis' reference to 'pornography' may raise
some questions. While pornography consumption can be realised as an attempt
to seek libidinal pleasure through the imagery of others celebrating their
symptoms, one may wonder, what kind of satisfaction anyone might seek from
the repetition of a holocaust memory? Do we look for satisfaction? And
if we do, what kind of satisfaction are we after exactly? What are the
symptoms that are celebrated by the story tellers, and what are our symptoms
consuming them?
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- Instead of a culture hooked on recycled images of degradation
and suffering, I would actually expect a moral lesson to surface from the
Shoa. I would hope for a genuine search for mercy and compassion. Evidently,
this has never happened. Putting aside Israeli barbarism in Palestine,
the West and the English speaking empire have never stopped igniting wars
in the name of fake values driven by the Holocaust (democracy, liberalism,
'universal' human rights and so on).
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- Katsoulis stresses that the 'hoaxers' "had difficult
childhoods but, feeling that their truth was shamefully small, they sought
the grand signifier of the Holocaust to attract the compassion that they
desired." I urge you to read Katsoulis and if you have a spare moment,
check out the comments that are no less revealing.
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- I myself saw recently saw two short videos that left
me puzzled.
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- The first was an ABC News televised interview with Herman
Rosenblat,
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- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j30sWIOMIak&feature=related
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- "The twinkly-eyed American pensioner who came forward
with a story so magical that it lifted the heart of every cynic in New
York," was nothing but that of a compulsive liar. Once Rosenblat
was confronted as a hoaxer he told the camera.
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- "It wasn't a lie. It was my imagination. I believed
my imagination, I believe my mind, I believe it now"
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- "But you know it wasn't true" he is challenged
by the ABC interviewer. "Yes", he answers, "But in my imagination
it was true".
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- I guess that no one can argue with such an advanced post
modernist argument.
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- In another video clip; Irene Weisberg Zisblatt, whose
testimony is showcased in Steven Spielberg's documentary film The Last
Days, is caught lying to the camera at least twice.
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- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DHx5DnwlWk
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- I am not judging Zisblatt's dishonesty or her tendency
to exaggerate. It is more than likely that this woman went through hell
on earth. But I do challenge Stephen Spielberg who, for some reason decided
to exploit this woman in his Holywoodian attempt to archive and depict
what he calls the 'truth' of the holocaust.
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- The question we are left with is why. Why does she lie?
Why does he lie? Why does anyone lie? And if they lie and are entitled
to believe in their figment of imagination, where can we learn about the
truth? What can we learn about the truth? What is truth? Is there any truth?
And if we can ever be lucky enough to find the truth or even just 'a truth',
can we announce it without being at risk of social exclusion or even losing
our freedom?
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- Katsoulis exposes a perverse tendency in the midst of
our Western discourse. It is proved beyond doubt that our freedom to speak,
and even to think, is under severe assault. I would take it one step further
and argue that the Holocaust religion is the biggest current assault against
humanity and humanism. First, it stops us from revisiting and revising
our own living memory. Second, it stops us from drawing a universal ethical
lesson from history and third, it leads to more and more genocidal crimes.
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- Instead of a revenge-driven doctrine, what we really
want is grace and compassion.
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- Rather than a singular monolithic belief system promoting
a deceptive notion of freedom centred on Jewish pain, what we really want
is real pluralism and tolerance that would accept more than just one truth
and encourage belief systems to respect each other.
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- In fact, the Jews, should have been the first to grasp
it all. As Emmanuel Levinassuggested after WWII, Jews should have located
themselves at the forefront of the battle against evil and racism.
- Despite there being a handful of Jewish 'self haters'
who are committed to the exposure of the Zionist crime, this never happened.
Not only did it not happen, the Jewish state is the ultimate example of
a racist nationalist terrorist state.
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- Katsoulis is far from being a Holocaust denier. She believes
that the Holocaust happened, yet she writes about the robbery of its memory.
"When a writer stands before other survivors and gives as scripture
what is stolen from the memories of real witnesses, they can expect little
sympathy." Katsoulis offers some criticism of the "unregulated
Holocaust "industry", where victimhood is rewarded by money and
fame."
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- However, I would like to extend Katsoulis' quest. I would
maintain that in fact we are the witnesses of an ongoing holocaust in Palestine,
Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. We also witness Israel preparing itself
to nuke Iran in the name of Jewish history and the Holocaust in particular.
In front of our eyes we see the emergence of evil on a colossal magnitude,
and we are somehow paralyzed by a historical chapter that, in comparison
to contemporary Israeli crimes, has less and less significance or relevance.
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- Rather than being subject to an idolatry of an untouchable
past, we better start to be concerned with the HERE and NOW, with the genocides
that are committed in our names and under our nose by Israel and its supporters
around the world.
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- (1) http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/why-
- would-any-writer-make-up-stories-about-the-holocaust-1803275.html
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- http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/pornographic-past-vs-
- murderous-present-by-gilad-atzmon.html
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