large numbers of Ukrainians took grave risks and even gave their lives to save
Jews), that any anti-Jewish feeling on the part of Ukrainians that did exist
was gratuitous and pathological (when in reality it was founded on a memory of
the recent Jewish domination of the destruction of Ukraine under Communism).
Thus, any Ukrainians who were offered a Righteous Gentile Award should have
declined it for the same reason that the 761st declined to be honored in the
Liberators. Any Ukrainians who have accepted such an award should renounce it.
Ukrainians should consider withdrawing their support from the Public Broadcasting
Service (PBS). The PBS is portrayed by Goldberg as supportive of the
Liberators even after the film had been discredited. Ukrainians may recall,
furthermore, that the PBS broadcast a severely flawed anti-Demjanjuk
documentary despite prior notice on the part of Ukrainian representatives
specifying the nature of these flaws. Observations such as these invite the
conclusion that the PBS acts in sympathy with Jewish disinformation, and in
opposition to Ukrainian interests. For this reason, Ukrainians should consider
withdrawing their support from the PBS.
Ukrainians should consider cancelling their subscriptions to TIME magazine. The
Apollo Theater showing of the Liberators was sponsored by "Time Warner and a
host of rich and influential New Yorkers." Readers of the Ukrainian Archive
will be reminded that TIME magazine was responsible for the calumniation of
Ukraine in the Wallowing Photograph incident. From these two indications, we
may wonder whether Time Warner, and TIME magazine, are not sympathetic toward
Holocaust disinformation and hostile toward Ukrainian interests. After having
been a more than three-decades-long reader of TIME, I recently cancelled my
subscription.
Proven fraud does little to lessen propaganda value. As the Liberators film has
been discredited, it appears to stand little chance of being accepted as
history. However, this does not make the film a failure. The film continues
to be valuable as a tool for shaping public opinion, particularly for molding
the minds of the young. At the time of the writing of the Goldberg article
above, the film was about to be distributed to "all New York City junior and
senior high schools." We may expect, then, that hundreds of thousands of
impressionable students will view the Liberators and will believe it, and that
the refutations of Jeffrey Goldberg, and the soldiers of the 761st Tank
Battalion, and others will reach the ears of only a few. The film may never
succeed as history, but it has a good chance of succeeding as popular history,
and it is popular history that influences elections and that directs the
allocation of government resources.
Choosing between useful lies and harmful truths. One of the weapons within the
armamentarium of the totalitarian controller of information - that a useful lie
is better than a harmful truth - is explicitly wielded by at least one
supporter of the Liberators film:
She [Peggy Tishman] claims that the accuracy of
the film is not the issue. What is important is the
way it can bring Jews and blacks into "dialogue."
There are a lot of truths that are very necessary,"
she says. "This [that the 761st did not liberate
Buchenwald or Dachau] is not a truth that's
necessary."
However, wielding the weapon of the useful lie will succeed only in a context
in which the flow of contrary information can be choked off. In a society that
permits the free flow of information, there is no useful lie, because all lies
stand in danger of being exposed and thus discrediting the liar and his cause.
Thus, we may expect that an ancillary goal of the distributors of
disinformation will be to strangle the free flow of information - and more
specifically, we might expect that those backing efforts such as the Liberators
film will simultaneously back efforts to suppress web sites such as the
Ukrainian Archive. In a totalitarian society, the Liberators film constitutes
a useful day's work for the manipulators of mass opinion; in a free society,
the Liberators film constitutes a self-defeating miscalculation.
Furthermore, such an open avowal of the utility of lying as Peggy Tishman's
above brings to mind the question raised during the discussion of journalistic
fraud Stephen Glass of whether there may exist subcultures which by means of
their tolerance of, or support for, lying produce a disproportionate number of
great liars.
Consorting with Hasidim. In Goldberg's Liberators story above, Hasidic rabbi
Leib Glanz embraces Rev. Jesse Jackson on the stage of the Apollo Theater.
However, "the next night Rabbi Glanz was nearly chased out of synagogue by
angry Hasidim for the transgression of consorting with Mr. Jackson." This
brief description is puzzling, and from it alone we would be unable to arrive
at any strong conclusion, were it not for our having read some of the
characteristics of Hasidism in the writings of Israel Shahak.
With Shahak's description in mind, we are tempted to interpret Rabbi Glanz
