'6410.4011114
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4.41.1.W
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
64 Friday, June 4, 1982
Case of Vanessa Redgrave and the Boston Symphony
By REV. FRANKLIN
LITTELL
.
National Institute
on the Holocaust
PHILADELPHIA — A
slight victory for civility has
recently been won in the
withdrawal of an invitation
to Vanessa Redgrave to star
in Boston with the Boston
Symphony Orchestra. Red-
grave is the anti-Semitic
theater and movie star
whose abuse of her platform
as an Academy Award win-
ner startled millions of TV
viewers two years ago. The
issue was not, of course, her
opinions: the issue was her
lack of an aesthetic sense,
her lack of a sense of dignity
and propriety.
At the time, bubbleheads
argued that one must dis-
tinguish between her artis-
tic talent and "political
opinions." But no one could
say why, since she failed to
make such a distincition
herself.
As an anti-Semite and
terrorist apologist, she put
herself in the shoes of Leni
Riefenstahl. Riefenstahl
was one of the most gifted
film impresarios of the 20th
Century. She broke into a
male monopoly. She di-
rected "Triumph of the
Will," certainly one of the
most brilliant films of the
early decades of movie-
making.
Is an artist who has
The reference to
First Amendment, consider prejudice. Consider the first
,1 '
"blacklisting" is deliber-
threatening acts and con- paragraph for openers:
ately dishonest. No
"Blacklisting is back.
spiracy to be matters of
blacklist has been de-
Joseph McCarthy lives. The
"opinion."
veloped by the Boston
Only those sympathetic First Amendment flounders
Symphony Orchestra.
to the Communist or fascist
.4ew
Other portions of the
Take the simplest
political lines would call
heo'
ero-
Bernheimer
membership in a subver- point, if readers stop to
Redgrave sermon are of
sive, terrorist movement a think. The First Amend-
the same level. How does
matter of "opinion." Most of ment does not guarantee
,,,---'
such a pitch get featured
us can still distinguish be a contract with the Bos-
r in the Los Angeles Times.
tween opinions, expressed ton Symphony Or-
Or
the Philadelphia
chestra. If it did, a long
or not and overt actions.
quirer and like newsp ist, __
That is what makes so queue of would-be musi-
F
ers?
dismaying a column cal stars would stand at
,:i,':
Vanessa Redgral. -: is not
which appeared in the the head of an even
an American citizen. To be
Los Angeles Times de- longer queue of frus
precise, the First Amend-
fending Vanessa Red- trated poets demanding
REV. LITTELL
ment does not apply in her ,, <
grave as "a superb ac- the accompaniment of
less generalizations, un- case at all. What applies,
tress who happens to be a the symphony.
_
The First Amendment, as documented, unsubstan- were she a civil and decent -
political activist with
VANESSA REDGRAVE
certainly tiated and finally re- guest, would be that com-
made herself a political some extreme personal Bernheimer
knows, simply prohibits the pudiated by all branches of plex of protections which
prostitute, a talented views."
apply to "strangers in the
Redgrave is not unwel- intervention of Congress to government.
propagandist for a sys-
Yet, due to the moral land."
tem of wickedness and come because she is a "polit- inhibit free expression. In
murder (whether Third ical activist," as the writer recent years the Supreme cowardice of persons in very But she is not civil and
Reich or PLO), to be implies: she is unwelcome Court has held, under the high places in the executive decent. She is a member of a
judged solely on the basis because she is an anti- 14th Amendment's "due and legislative branches of disciplined band of ter-
of technical talent? Semite and an apologist for process" clause, all govern- the federal government, Joe rorists, a propagandist for
,
terrorism. Neither are her ment agencies in check to McCarthy strutted the another terrorist move-
Why shouldn't we then views "personal," as the protect individual freedom stage for several years in ment, and a vicious anti-
dedicate schools of corn- writer implies: as a member of expression. The sym- America. And what he ac- Semite. That she is talented
munication to Josef Goeb- of a disciplined Marxist sect phony is not a governmen- tually did, of course, was to is beside the point: so were,
bels, assuredly the out- (Trotskyite), she shares tal agency, and no one has provide the Communists supremely in their own spe-
standing propaganda tech- with her co-believers the prevented Redgrave from with the best "cover" they cialties, Stalin and Hitler
nician of the first half of this proclamation that neither having her say on the street have had in America in 50 and Josef Goebbels.
Redgrave does not belong
century?
years. After the McCarthy
_
her theory nor praxis are corner.
The reference to Joe years, it became practically in any featured position in
Of course the issue is not "personal."
The column defending McCarthy is deliberately impossible to get church America. She belongs, if we
"opinions." Only the 19th
Century legal fundamen- Redgrave, written by one demagogic. Decent Ameri- people or college people to had the laws suitable to de-
talists, who would cover Martin Bernheimer, is full cans have a neuralgic re- deal realistically with fend republican principles
every moral and political of such attempts. And sponse when they re- Communist penetration of and human rights in the
obscenity with what the through it all there is a note member the black Irishman unions, campuses and even Age of Genocide and Ter-
lawyers twist out of the of hysteria and an appeal to of Wisconsin and his reck- church agencies. rorism, in a British prison.
.
Dictator's Anti-Semitism Documented in 'Stalin's Secret War'
Nikolai Tolstoy, scion of this mass murder is difficult both systems, found that at wrest the Crimea from the
the famous Tolstoy family, to appreciate in human Ravensbruck Camp it was Soviet Union and to estab-
an heir to the Leo Tolstoy terms. A German prisoner not until the latter days of lish an outpost of American
record of literary achieve- in Vorkuta learned that it their dying regime that the imperialism'; they 'planted'
ments and historical re- was 'calculated that on the Nazis were able to catch up a Jewish husband on his
search, adds to the expose of railways every sleeper cost with the Bolsheviks in daughter Svetlana; they •
the Stalin crimes in "Sta- one dead man and that in brutality: 'Things were de- banded together under the
Tin's Secret War" (Holt, the mines there were two dining to a Siberian level, guise of doctors for the pur-
Rineh art and Winston), dead men for every yard dug and by the end of 1944 there pose of poisoning the Leader
which is subtitled "A startl- underground'. Within a few was not a great deal of dif- of Peoples.
ing expose of his crimes years an entire generation ference left between
"However, Stalin's an-
and tipathy to the Jews was not
against the Russian of prisoners would be wiped Ravensbruck
out, to be replaced by an- Karaganda.' "
•
people."
What caused Stalin to
Josef Stalin as dictator, as other.
"In the sheer number of become the collaborator
collaborator with Hitler in
World War II, who still be- victims destroyed, the in the Hitler anti-Semitic
lieved the Nazi Fuehrer to Soviet Union easily out- tactics? What was the
be a staunch supporter, his distanced its ally of 1939- root of his hatred for
fear that Russia would be 41. Dr. Julius Margolin, a Jews? How extensive
conquered by the Nazis Zionist leader who was re- was this brutality?
turned him against the leased after seven years in Tolstoy provides the
Germans — that's when the the custody of gulag, wrote roots of their hatred:
"It was probably inevita-
great struggle began, with that Ilitlerism has been be-
Stalin as the ally of the aten, while the Soviet ble that Stalin would come
democratic nations, includ- camps continue to exist . . . to share his brother dictator
Since they came into being, in Berlin's fear and hatred
ing the U.S.
In the course of his expose the Soviet camps have swal- of the 'universal Jew'. It was
of the Stalin terror, Tolstoy lowed more people, have not so much a belief in the
chronicles the anti- exacted more victims, than Jews' racial inferiority that
Semitism of the brutal all other camps — Hitler's agitated Stalin's breast, as a
JOSEF STALIN
Soviet leader. and others — together, and conviction that he was
The Stalinist anti- this lethal engine continues threatened by a vast conspi-
Zionist crusade are to operate full-blast . . . An racy engineered by this the all-absorbing obsession
especially outlined and at entire generation of strange and secretive it was to Hitler. His anti-
Semitism, which can be
the very outset Tolstoy Zionists has died in Soviet people.
traced back to his early
"Everywhere
their
hand
quotes an eminent prisons, camps, and exile.'
"A woman, who was un- was visible: they 'were try- youth, was a reflection of his
Jewish leader, portray-
fortunate enough to have ing to set up a Jewish state hatred for any group of
ing the cruelties, thus:
"The enormous scale of prolonged experience of in the Crimea in order to people who remained unas-
similated, unatomized
under his rule.
"In Ronald Hingley's
pithy apothegm, 'the ma-
ture Stalin was not nar-
rowly biased against any
specific section of human-
ity, for his sympathies were
broadly and generously
anti-human in general.'
his
"Nonetheless
hatred lighted particu-
larly heavily on this man's-land on the eastern
broken and persecuted bank of the river Bug. They
people. The fact that he had left behind them the
publicly condenined whips and rifle-butts of
anti-Semitism as a crime Heydrich's bullies, but how
indicates the more they found themselves faced
clearly that his own by a wall of NKVD frontier
anti-Semitism stemmed troops, who opened fire with
from genuine prejudice, machine-guns and released
rather than an attempt to savage dogs on anyone at-
elicit popularity from tempting to cross over.
anti-Semitic sections of
"During the bitter winter
the populace.
months great crowds of
"Despite this, it was ob- Jews slept under the open
served that popular anti- sky, wedged between the
Semitism increased enor- lands of the allied con-
mously during the period of querors. Their numbers
Stalin's rule; partly in re- continued to dwindle as
sponse to none too subtle many died of exposure and
indications of approval from privation, whilst others in
above, and partly as an irra- despair returned to the
tional reaction to the appal- German zone, and so ulti-
ling tribulations of the age.
mately to the slaughter-
"On the official level per- houses of Maidanek and
secution of the Jews ranged Belsen .. .
from the existence of a
"At the end of the year
secret 'quota' in public (i.e. (1939)
Stalin
sent
virtually all) employment, warm greetings to Hitler,
whereby strict limits were remarking that the
set on the number of Jews friendship between the
employable, and an out- peoples of the SoN
right purge of Jews from Union and Nazi Germ
universities in 1953, to the had every reason to
imprisonment and torture solid
lasting,-
and
of thousands of so-called cemented as it was by
Zionists in the notorious blood. This was true
camps of gulag.
enough: the blood was
Especially horrifying is that of thousands of
the description of the perse- Poles and Jews.
cution of Polish Jews when
Tolstoy's "Stalin's Secret
they fled into Russian terri-
tory as escapees from Hit- War" is so revealing that it
lerism, their plight was marks another chapter in
equally terrifying. Here is a Holocaust literature, this
portion of the record as pro- time linking the two most
vided in the new Tolstoy terrifying sets of
brutalities, the Hitlerites
volume:
"Over the winter of and the Stalinisl;s. It is a
1939-40 thousands of ter- volume of noteworthy sig-
rifled Jews, fleeing from SS nificance in the study of the
savagery, arrived in no- bestialities of World War II.