newspaper ads announcing that French consumption of fatty food was counteracted by drinking French red wine. "[Health] announcements are increasing consumption more than anything else," said Stephanie Grubbs, marketing manager for Robert Mondavi Coastal, in Impact magazine in 1997. That same year, three out of four readers in the January Consumer Reports on Health survey believed that moderate red wine consumption is more beneficial than drinking beer or liquor. Recently, the San Francisco-based Wine Institute helped some California wineries get permission from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) to add a label referring consumers to the federal dietary guidelines to learn the "health effects" of alcohol. But anyone who actually sent for the document would discover that the government's advice on alcohol is mostly cautionary. Inflamed by the belief that the wine industry was using the label to make it appear that the government was suggesting Americans drink for their health, Senator Strom Thurmond (R-SC), whose daughter was killed by a drunk driver, recently won a battle for the BATF to hold hearings on whether the "health effects" label can legally be affixed to every wine bottle. They're scheduled to take place in a number of U.S. cities in late spring. Today the Wine Institute touts its product on its website with studies and press releases. One quotes David Pittman, Ph.D., researcher at Washington University in St. Louis: "In societies such as France, Italy, Spain and Portugal, where wine and overall alcohol consumption is higher than in the United States, they just don't have as many alcohol-related problems such as drunk driving and underage drinking." That would be news to France. The world view that the French are able to control their drinking habits is untrue, according to Pierre Kopp, professor of economics at the Sorbonne. Kopp recently released the first French study estimating the cost of legal (alcohol and tobacco) and illegal drugs. Kopp estimates that alcohol costs France $18.5 billion (U.S.) each year. Drinking is responsible for nearly 53 percent of overall social costs of alcohol, tobacco and illegal drugs, he reports. (Annual cost to the state is $14.3 billion for tobacco and $2 billion for illegal drugs.) But even these high alcohol economic cost figures are underestimated, cautions the researcher, because he left out alcohol-related crime and accidents, which comprise some of the largest costs to society in the United States. Kopp focused on public and private money spent on medical treatment, lost productivity, absenteeism, uncollected taxes, unpaid health contributions, and preventive measures. [...] "Consumption is exceptionally high and the final bill is extremely heavy. Alcohol accounted for 42,963 deaths in France in 1997." [...] When "60 Minutes" introduced the French Paradox to America, Morley Safer featured only one French scientific authority - Serge Renaud, a trendsetter in alcohol research who still maintains that "there is no doubt that a moderate intake of wine (one to three glasses per day for a man) is associated with a 30- to 40-percent reduction in mortality from all causes." In its first issue of the new millennium, the prestigious British journal Lancet noted in a short profile of Renaud that his enthusiasm for alcohol and the French Paradox is hardly unanimous today among his French peers. In fact, at least two of the scientists instrumental in early French Paradox research today disagree with Renaud's belief in the central role of alcohol in a lower coronary heart disease rate. [...] What's new for both men is the MONICA Project established by centers around the world to MONItor trends in Cardiovascular diseases and relate them to risk factor changes over a 10-year period. Established in the early 1980s by WHO, its final data were highlighted last September at the European Society of Cardiology in Barcelona. De Lorgeril reported there that the WHO data were 75 to 90 percent higher than France's statistics for coronary heart disease deaths. The cardiologist said he scrutinized alcohol-related deaths and found that French men, "who drink too much," have the highest rates of liver disease and - by far - more upper gastrointestinal cancer, and were more likely to die in accidents, by suicide, or as a consequence of crime than men of other nationalities. While men in Sweden can expect to live 76.5 years on average, a French man's average lifespan, said de Lorgeril, is 74.1 years. Dr. Ian Graham, a professor of epidemiology at Trinity College in Dublin, said that de Lorgeril's statistics suggest that the lower rate of coronary deaths in France are due "to competing causes of death" - many more French men might die early from alcohol-related causes before they have the opportunity to die of heart disease. [...] In 1998, a pharmacist who is a director at the French counterpart of the U.S. National Institute of Health handed then French Health Minister Bernard Kouchner a report that had the effect of "a sort of a bomb." In what has become known as the Roques Report, Bernard Roques classified drugs on the basis of their danger to the public rather than their legal status. Based on scientific data, alcohol took first place along with heroin and cocaine; tobacco took second place with amphetamines and LSD; and marijuana was in the third, least dangerous group. [...] Written by Hilary Abramson; edited by James F. Mosher; copy edited by Pam Glenn Copyright 2000 Marin Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol & Other Drug Problems The original article from which the above excerpts were taken can be found on the Marin Institute web site at www.marininstitute.org/NL2000.html. Drink Like the French, Die Like the French by David Jernigan The truth is finally starting to come out: If Americans drink alcohol like the French, we will die like the French. [...] Nearly 43,000 French people die each year from alcohol-related causes, roughly the equivalent of 200,000 American - double the number who currently die annually of alcohol-related causes in the United States. According to the World Health Organization's Global Status Report on Alcohol, the French drink 54 percent more alcohol than Americans, and die of liver cirrhosis 57 percent more often. Yes, fewer French people die of heart disease than would be expected given their fatty diets. However, French men in particular die prematurely in disproportionate numbers, and alcohol-related problems are often the cause. In 1991, Morley Safer's "60 Minutes" report on the possible heart protective effects of drinking red wine led to a 44 percent increase in red wine sales among Americans. Assiduous lobbying by wine makers prompted the Department of Agriculture (USDA) for the first time to make positive mention of alcohol consumption in its Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Now wineries want to label their products as health food. In 1999 several wineries convinced the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) to permit an ambiguous label on wine bottles suggesting that people write the USDA to learn more about the "health effects" of drinking alcohol. Further pressure from the Wine Institute and complaints from Senator Strom Thurmond, author of the warning label currently on alcohol bottles, prompted BATF to open the entire issue of putting health claims on alcohol bottles for public comment. The BATF is expected to hold hearings on the topic around the nation this spring. To date, no U.S. government agency has recommended that Americans drink alcohol to protect themselves against heart disease. [...] The push to put a health benefits label on alcohol bottles is a marketing ploy, pure and simple. [...] David Jernigan directs international programs for The Marin Institute. He is the author of Thirsting for Markets: The Global Impact of Corporate Alcohol. Copyright 2000 Marin Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol & Other Drug Problems The original article from which the above excerpts were taken can be found on the Marin Institute web site at www.marininstitute.org/NL2000a.html. What you are obligated to do (1) Retract and correct The French Paradox. You must bring to public attention two things: that the evidence presented in your two French Paradox broadcasts was insufficient to justify your conclusions to the effect that drinking wine prolongs life (as explained in my letter to you of 21Apr99, already cited above); and that broader scientific evidence than you reported in your broadcasts, or since, contradicts your conclusions (as illustrated in the Marin Institute excerpts above). Your unwarranted and false conclusions advocating wine consumption cannot be left to continue inflicting harm upon the public as they do today. Your obligation to journalism, to 60 Minutes, to the public, and to your conscience, demands that you issue such a retraction and correction without reservation and without delay. (2) Disclose any conflict of interest relating to The French Paradox. Please disclose any consideration that you may have received, or that 60 Minutes or CBS may have received, from the wine or alcohol industries for your two French Paradox broadcasts. In the absence of affirmations on your part that no such consideration has traded hands, your broadcasts may tend to be viewed less as defective reporting than as infomercials. Of particular interest would be the nature of any relationship between 60 Minutes and Edgar Bronfman Senior, chairman of liquor giant Seagram. (3) Retract and correct The Ugly Face of Freedom. Every day, growing numbers of people become convinced that you owe a similar retraction and correction for your similarly incorrect and damaging 23Oc94 broadcast, The Ugly Face of Freedom. (4) Disclose any conflict of interest relating to The Ugly Face of Freedom. Please disclose the degree to which your broadcast The Ugly Face of Freedom was requested by external sources, who these sources were, and what benefits to 60 Minutes or to CBS accrued from complying with such external requests. Of particular interest would be any request originating from the direction of Edgar Bronfman Senior. You need to take some such step in order to disarm the suspicion that your broadcast was no better than an eruption of the hatred toward non-Jews, and particularly of the special hatred toward Ukrainians, which is endemic to Jewish culture. Lubomyr Prytulak HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE WIESENTHAL < Wiesenthal Wiesenthal > 747 hits since 18Jan98 Wiesenthal Letter 14 Sep 4/97 The forgotten Bodnar September 4, 1997 Simon Wiesenthal Jewish Documentation Center Salztorgasse 6 1010 Vienna Austria Dear Mr. Wiesenthal: In your testimony on the 60 Minutes broadcast of October 23, 1994 "The Ugly Face of Freedom" I notice a startling omission: MORLEY SAFER: I get the impression from people that the actions of the Ukrainians, if anything, were worse than the Germans. SIMON WIESENTHAL: About the civilians, I cannot say this. About the Ukrainian police, yes. That's all you said! You just left it at that! But in that case, there is something very big missing from your statement, isn't there Mr. Wiesenthal - something very interesting, very important, very relevant? Something that the 60 Minutes viewer would have found to be quite remarkable? Do you know what it is? It is the story of the Ukrainian policeman with the surname Bodnar - the one who saved your life? Remember him? Don't you think that this forgotten Bodnar is someone who should have been mentioned in your statement? And doesn't the story of the forgotten Bodnar somewhat contradict your unqualified statement that the Ukrainian police collectively were worse than the Germans? And if among what you say is the worst of the Ukrainians (the auxiliary police) some are saving Jews, then what heroic acts can we expect among the rest of the Ukrainian population? To refresh your memory about this story which seems so forgettable to you now, I may remind you that you were about to be executed, but: The shooting stopped. Ten yards from Wiesenthal. The next thing he remembers was a brilliant cone of light and behind it a Polish voice: "But Mr. Wiesenthal, what are you doing here?" Wiesenthal recognized a foreman he used to know, by the name of Bodnar. He was wearing civilian clothes with the armband of a Ukrainian police auxiliary. "I've got to get you out of here tonight." Bodnar told the [other] Ukrainians that among the captured Jews he had discovered a Soviet spy and that he was taking him to the district police commissar. In actual fact he took Wiesenthal back to his own flat, on the grounds that it was unlikely to be searched so soon again. This was the first time Wiesenthal survived. (Peter Michael Lingens, in Simon Wiesenthal, Justice Not Vengeance, 1989, p. 8) But the story of the forgotten Bodnar is even better than that - Bodnar not only saved you, not only risked his life to save you, but possibly gave his life to save you. I say that because Bodnar must have known that the punishment for saving a Jew from execution and then helping him escape would be death. And how could he get away with it? In fact, I ask you now, Mr. Wiesenthal, whether the forgotten Bodnar did get away with it, or whether he paid for it with his life, for as you were tiptoeing out, you were stopped, Bodnar offered his fabricated story, and then: The German sergeant, already a little drunk, slapped Bodnar's face and said: "Then what are you standing around for? If this is what you people are like, then later we'll all have troubles. Report back to me as soon as you deliver them [Wiesenthal along with a fellow prisoner]." (Alan Levy, The Wiesenthal File, 1993, p. 37) These passages invite several pertinent conclusions which a man of integrity and conscience would have insisted on bringing to Morley Safer's attention: (1) You yourself, Mr. Wiesenthal, can see a Ukrainian police official having his face slapped by a German sergeant, which serves to remind you that Ukraine is under occupation, to show you who is really in charge, to suggest that the German attitude toward Ukrainians is one of contempt and that the expression of this contempt is unrestrained. (2) You yourself see also that Bodnar's flat is subject to searches, indicating that although he is a participant in the anti-Jewish actions, he is a distrusted participant, and a participant who might feel intimidated by the hostile scrutiny of the occupying Nazis. (3) But most important of all, you see that the German sergeant is waiting for Bodnar to report back. Alan Levy writes that "Bodnar was ... concerned ... that now he [Bodnar] had to account, verbally at least, for his two prisoners" (p. 37). If Bodnar reports back with the news that you, Mr. Wiesenthal, escaped, then how might Bodnar expect the face-slapping German sergeant to respond? For Bodnar at this point in the story to actually allow you, Mr. Wiesenthal, to escape is heroic, it is self-sacrificing, it is suicidal. And yet the forgotten Bodnar does go ahead and effect your escape, probably never imagining that in later years this will become an event unworthy of notice during your blanket condemnation of Ukrainians. What I urge you to do now, Mr. Wiesenthal, is the following: (1) Conduct a search to determine the fate of the forgotten Bodnar, and bestow upon him the recognition that he deserves for his heroic action. Hopefully, Bodnar is still alive, so that the recognition will not be posthumous. Hopefully, Bodnar did not sacrifice his life to save yours, as then your ingratitude would be truly black. (2) Bring the forgotten Bodnar to the attention of Morley Safer at 60 Minutes, and ask for some correction of the negative image created of the Ukrainian police. (3) Search your memory long and hard and determine a version of the story which appears to be closest to the truth, and then publish it as the official account, because at present, the wildly different versions in your several biographies create the negative image of someone who just spews tall tales off the top of his head, without any consideration for making them consistent with earlier versions of those same tales. For example, Mr. Wiesenthal, what impression do you imagine is created in the mind of a reader who is told in Justice Not Vengeance that Bodnar saved you alone and took you to his apartment, but then is told in The Wiesenthal File that Bodnar saved you together with another prisoner and took the two of you to the office of a "commissar" which office the two of you spent the entire night cleaning? I will tell you what impression is created, Mr. Wiesenthal - it is that of a person lying so clumsily, that one almost imagines that he does so in order to be caught and exposed so as to finally be able to confess and to purge his conscience. Sincerely yours, Lubomyr Prytulak HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE WIESENTHAL < Wiesenthal Wiesenthal > 879 hits since 18Jan98 Wiesenthal Letter 15 Sep 8/97 The elusive Lviv pogrom September 8, 1997 Simon Wiesenthal Jewish Documentation Center Salztorgasse 6 1010 Vienna Austria Dear Mr. Wiesenthal: According to your testimony on the 60 Minutes broadcast of October 23, 1994, "The Ugly Face of Freedom," in three days following the evacuation of the Communist forces and before the arrival of the German troops, Ukrainian police killed between five and six thousand Jews: SAFER: He [Simon Wiesenthal] remembers that even before the Germans arrived, Ukrainian police went on a 3-day killing spree. WIESENTHAL: And in this 3 days in Lvov alone between 5 and 6 thousand Jews was killed. ... SAFER: But even before the Germans entered Lvov, the Ukrainian militia, the police, killed 3,000 people in 2 days here. Now before going beyond what was actually said in the broadcast, we already see a discrepancy which I ask you to comment on. Specifically, you are the expert on the Holocaust who is testifying on 60 Minutes, and more than that you are the eyewitness to the Lviv pogrom - the only eyewitness - and you tell Morley Safer that 5 to 6 thousand Jews were killed in three days - but then Mr. Safer turns around and changes it to 3 thousand killed in two days. This does not seem fair - after all you were there and Morley Safer wasn't, and whereas for Mr. Safer, this is just a story that he is covering, for you it is the pivotal experience which determined the course of your life, the experience which in the words of Mr. Safer, "compelled Wiesenthal to seek out the guilty, to bring justice." So I wonder why Morley Safer changed your numbers? As you are the only witness adduced, Mr. Safer seems to have lowered your figures on his own initiative. I wonder if you have contacted Mr. Safer concerning his revision of your estimate, or if in your subsequent discussions with Mr. Safer, you might have by now arrived at a mutually-agreed estimate? If you have, I wonder if you would be able to tell me whether Mr. Safer has agreed to raise his estimate, or if you have agreed to lower yours? Be that as it may, it must surprise you to learn that when I consulted Leni Yahil's The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry, Oxford, New York, 1990 for further information on the Lviv pogrom, I found nothing. There is no indication in Yahil's book that such a pogrom ever took place. If Yahil's book were cursory or carelessly researched, then the oversight of the single largest pogrom of the War might be understandable, but if we are to believe the book's dust jacket, then it is one of the best works on the Jewish Holocaust ever written: When The Holocaust first appeared in Israel in 1987, it was hailed as the finest, most authoritative history of Hitler's war on the Jews ever published. Representing twenty years of research and reflection, Leni Yahil's book won the Shazar prize, one of Israel's highest awards for historical work. Well, in my continuing quest to learn more about the Lviv pogrom which you describe on 60 Minutes, I turned next to Raul Hilberg's The Destruction of the European Jews, Holmes & Meier, New York, 1985. This work too cannot be accused of being either cursory or carelessly researched. For example, the publisher's promotional material claims: This landmark work, now substantially revised and expanded, is destined to remain the foremost source to which historians and others must turn in any exploration of the most infamous crime in history. ... This definitive edition of THE DESTRUCTION OF THE EUROPEAN JEWS is the most complete, comprehensive, and authoritative account of the Nazi Holocaust. As well, this same promotional material cites critical acclaim for Hilberg's work in Michael R. Marrus's review in The Times Literary Supplement which ends in the words: No single book has contributed more, even to its critics, to an understanding of Nazi genocide. In its originality, scope, and seriousness of theme, this is one of the great historical works of our time. But what does Hilberg say about the Lviv pogrom, this most massive pogrom of the Second World War; what does he say in his "most complete, comprehensive, and authoritative account of the Nazi Holocaust"? Why he says ... exactly nothing! He too seems to be totally unaware of it. Worse than that - much worse - Hilberg makes statements to the effect that no such pogrom ever took place. I reproduce below three quotations from Hilberg, the last of which is particularly troubling, as it is his summary of all anti-Jewish activity in Ukraine, and it flatly contradicts the possibility of the pogrom that you describe: From the Ukraine Einsatzkommando 6 of Einsatzgruppe C reported as follows: Almost nowhere can the population be persuaded to take active steps against the Jews. This may be explained by the fear of many people that the Red Army may return. Again and again this anxiety has been pointed out to us. Older people have remarked that they had already experienced in 1918 the sudden retreat of the Germans. In order to meet the fear psychosis, and in order to destroy the myth ... which, in the eyes of many Ukrainians, places the Jew in the position of the wielder of political power, Einsatzkommando 6 on several occasions marched Jews before their execution through the city. Also, care was taken to have Ukrainian militiamen watch the shooting of Jews. This "deflation" of the Jews in the public eye did not have the desired effect. After a few weeks, Einsatzgruppe C complained once more that the inhabitants did not betray the movements of hidden Jews. The Ukrainians were passive, benumbed by the "Bolshevist terror." Only the ethnic Germans in the area were busily working for the Einsatzgruppe. (Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, 1961, p. 202 - in this case, I am quoting from the 1961 edition) The Slavic population stood estranged and even aghast before the unfolding spectacle of the "final solution." There was on the whole no impelling desire to cooperate in a process of such utter ruthlessness. The fact that the Soviet regime, fighting off the Germans a few hundred miles to the east, was still threatening to return, undoubtedly acted as a powerful restraint upon many a potential collaborator. (Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, 1985, p. 308) First, truly spontaneous pogroms, free from Einsatzgruppen influence, did not take place; all outbreaks were either organized or inspired by the Einsatzgruppen. Second, all pogroms were implemented within a short time after the arrival of the killing units. They were not self-perpetuating, nor could new ones be started after things had settled down. (Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, 1985, p. 312) It would seem, Mr. Wiesenthal, that you were an eyewitness - the only eyewitness - to the largest pogrom of the war, and that at the same time, at least two of the foremost chroniclers of the Jewish Holocaust have quite overlooked this program, and in the case of Raul Hilberg, flatly deny that any such pogrom ever took place. According to Hilberg, all Ukrainian pogroms took place after the arrival of the Germans, were instigated by the Germans, were small in scale, and had no momentum of their own. In view of this oversight on the part of the historians, Mr. Wiesenthal, shouldn't you get in touch with them and recount your experiences to them so that the story of the Lviv pogrom is not lost to future generations, and so that Jewish hatred of Ukrainians is not diminished by the loss? Sincerely yours, Lubomyr Prytulak HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE WIESENTHAL < Wiesenthal Wiesenthal > 906 hits since 18Jan98 Wiesenthal Letter 16 Sep 9/97 Shifting date for the Lviv pogrom September 9, 1997 Simon Wiesenthal Jewish Documentation Center Salztorgasse 6 1010 Vienna Austria Dear Mr. Wiesenthal: In my letter to you of September 8, I demonstrated that two prominent historians seem to be unaware of the pre-German Lviv pogrom which killed 5 to 6 thousand Jews, at least as claimed by Morley Safer and yourself on the 60 Minutes broadcast, The Ugly Face of Freedom of October 23, 1994. I will remind you that in that 60 Minutes broadcast, Morley Safer twice asserts - once seemingly in your hearing - that the Lviv pogrom antedated the arrival of the Germans, thus placing culpability squarely at the feet of the Ukrainian perpetrators. In a continuing effort to learn more about this Lviv pogrom, I turned to your biographical Justice Not Vengeance, only to discover you claiming that this pogrom postdated the arrival of the Germans: Thousands of detainees were shot dead in their cells by the retreating Soviets. This gave rise to one of the craziest accusations of that period: among the strongly anti-Semitic population the rumour was spread by the Ukrainian nationalists that all Jews were Bolsheviks and all Bolsheviks were Jews. Hence it was the Jews who were really to blame for the atrocities committed by the Soviets. All the Germans needed to do was to exploit this climate of opinion. It is said that after their arrival they gave the Ukrainians free rein, for three days, to 'deal' with the Jews. (Simon Wiesenthal, Justice Not Vengeance, 1989, p. 36, emphasis added) As the timing of the Lviv pogrom is critical to assigning blame, I would have expected this timing to have been verified with care and to be either consistent between the two reports, or else with an explanation offered for any inconsistency. Instead, I find that you along with Morley Safer have broadcast a version in 1994 that directly contradicts a version that you published five years earlier in 1989. I look forward to hearing your clarification of this discrepancy. Sincerely yours, Lubomyr Prytulak HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE WIESENTHAL < Wiesenthal Wiesenthal > 2113 hits since 18Jan98 Wiesenthal Letter 18 Sep 11/97 Questions concerning the Waffen SS September 11, 1997 Simon Wiesenthal Jewish Documentation Center Salztorgasse 6 1010 Vienna Austria Dear Mr. Wiesenthal: Your accusation that Canada harbors a large number of war criminals has been incessant over the years, and at one point led to the creation of Canada's Deschenes Commission on War Criminals. This accusation seems to be based primarily on Canada's presently being home to some former members of the Ukrainian Galicia Division, combined with the fact that the Galicia Division was categorized by the Germans as belonging to the Waffen SS. The first question that I would like to put to you, Mr. Wiesenthal, is whether you are aware that the Waffen SS was a combat unit that played no role in the management of concentration camps, and carried out no SS functions? I wonder if you are aware of this, as you typically - perhaps always? - drop the qualification "Waffen" and refer to members of the Galicia Division simply as members of the "SS," which gives the misleading impression that combat soldiers were administrators of concentration camps. If you are already aware of the distinction between the SS and the Waffen SS, then I wonder that you would allow yourself to present the misleading picture that you have been presenting. If you are unaware of this distinction, then I wonder how it came to be that you are accorded the status of an expert witness on World War II events, as you were on the 60 Minutes broadcast The Ugly Face of Freedom on October 23, 1994. Would you be able to throw any light on this question? But on top of that, you must have become aware during your long career as a Nazi hunter that Ukraine was not unique in providing the German armed forces with Waffen SS troops. Below, I reproduce a quote from an interview by Slavko Nowytski of Professor Norman Davies, historian at the University of London, and author of the recent Europe: A History, published by Oxford University Press: In discussing the question of collaborating with Germany Prof. Davies noted that, "A large number of the volunteers for the Waffen SS came from Western Europe. The nation which supplied it the largest number of divisions was the Netherlands [four]. There were two Belgian divisions, there was a French Waffen SS. To my mind, it's rather surprising that Ukraine, which is a much larger country [than the Netherlands or Belgium] supplied only one Waffen SS Division.... It's surprising that there were so few Ukrainians [in the German Army]. Many people don't know, for example, that there were far more Russians fighting alongside the Wehrmacht or in the various German armies than there were Ukrainians.... Thanks to Soviet propaganda, the Russian contribution to the Nazi war effort has been forgotten, whereas the Ukrainian contribution has been remembered, I think, too strongly." (Andrew Gregorovich, Forum, No. 95, Spring, 1997, p. 34) And so the information in the above quotation leads to several more questions: (1) As the population of The Netherlands is small, and as it contributed the largest number of Waffen SS divisions, this gives The Netherlands the largest per capita contribution to the Waffen SS of any country. Would you conclude from this that the people of The Netherlands are the most anti-Semitic in the world? And following the same line of reasoning, would you conclude that the people of Belgium are the next most anti-Semitic? And also that as the population of France is approximately equal to the population of Ukraine, and as each of these contributed one Waffen SS division, that the French are approximately as anti-Semitic as the Ukrainians? (2) As you have expended considerable energy attacking the former members of the Galicia Division as war criminals, I wonder if you have expended any similar energy attacking former members of The Netherlands, Belgium, and French Waffen SS divisions in the same way? For example, have you demanded any investigation of The Netherlands Waffen SS, and as a result has the government of The Netherlands ever created a commission on war criminals comparable to Canada's Deschenes Commission on War Criminals? And have you done so in Belgium? In France? If not, then why not? Why do you single out the Galicia Division? How is the Galicia Division different from the other Waffen SS divisions? (3) If in comparison to several other countries, Ukraine contributed proportionately fewer numbers to the Waffen SS, or to any of the German armed forces, then shouldn't you as a Nazi hunter, commend or thank Ukrainians for their relatively small contribution to the German war effort? (4) Are you aware that the chief motive behind the creation of the Galicia Division was to prevent the Soviet re-occupation of Ukraine? Are you aware that in consequence, the Galicia Division was organized with the proviso that it not be used against the Western allies, but only against the Soviets on the Eastern front; and that in fact, the only use to which the Galicia Division was ever put was against the Soviets in the Battle of Brody? If you are aware of this, then why did you not mention it on the 60 Minutes broadcast in which you were the chief witness and the Galicia Division the chief subject of discussion? If you are not aware of this, then why does 60 Minutes consider you an authority on World War II? Would you happen to know if the Waffen SS divisions of other countries were created under the same proviso? (5) Given that Canada's Deschenes Commission on War Criminals failed to identify even a single member of the Galicia Division as calling for further investigation; and given that neither you nor anyone else has ever had any member of the Galicia Division convicted of any crime, or even tried for any crime; and, most importantly, given that neither you nor anyone else has ever even specified any crime of which the Galicia Division as a whole, or any member of the Galicia Division, might have been guilty - given all this, I wonder if the time has not finally come when you have to admit that your obsession with the Galicia Division has been misplaced? And would you happen to know if the Waffen SS divisions of The Netherlands, Belgium, and France have proven to be as free from blame as has the Ukrainian Galicia Division? Sincerely yours, Lubomyr Prytulak HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE WIESENTHAL < Wiesenthal Wiesenthal > 840 hits since 18Jan98 Wiesenthal Letter 19 Sep 12/97 Testimony of Erwin Schulz September 12, 1997 Simon Wiesenthal Jewish Documentation Center Salztorgasse 6 1010 Vienna Austria Dear Mr. Wiesenthal: In my letters to you of September 8 and 9, 1997, I have questioned your assertion made on the 60 Minutes broadcast The Ugly Face of Freedom of October 23, 1994 to the effect that in the few days before the arrival of the Germans, Ukrainians killed some 5 to 6 thousand Jews in Lviv. I have recently come across some testimony that indicates that your assertion is correct on all of the details of this event save one. The fresh testimony that I am referring to is that of Erwin Schulz, Commander of Einsatzkommando 5 (a subunit of Einsatzgruppe C), from May until 26 September, 1941. From Schulz's testimony, it appears that several of the details of your assertion are correct: namely that the number murdered was 5,000, which is within the bounds of your own estimate; that the location was indeed Lviv (identified as Lemberg); that the time was indeed during the few days prior to the arrival of the Germans; and that the chief participants were indeed Ukrainians and Jews, although Schulz does mention the secondary involvement of others. The point on which Schulz differs from you is that whereas you say that the slaughter consisted of Ukrainians killing Jews, Schulz says that it consisted of Jews killing Ukrainians: We learned that, before the Russian troops had left, a very great number of Lemberg citizens, Ukrainians and Polish inhabitants of other towns and villages had been killed in this prison and in other prisons. Furthermore, there were many corpses of German men and officers, among them many Air Corps officers, and many of them were found mutilated. There was a great bitterness and excitement among the Lemberg population against the Jewish sector of the population. (Erwin Schulz, in John Mendelsohn, editor, The Holocaust: Selected Documents in Eighteen Volumes, Garland, New York, 1982, Volume 18, p. 18) On the next day, Dr. RASCH informed us to the effect that the killed people in Lemberg amounted to about 5,000. It has been determined without any doubt that the arrests and killings had taken place under the leadership of Jewish functionaries and with the participation of the Jewish inhabitants of Lemberg. That was the reason why there was such an excitement against the Jewish population on the part of the Lemberg citizens. (Erwin Schulz, in John Mendelsohn, editor, The Holocaust: Selected Documents in Eighteen Volumes, Garland, New York, 1982, Volume 18, p. 18) I wonder if you would care to comment on this discrepancy between Schulz's testimony and your own? Sincerely yours, Lubomyr Prytulak HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE WIESENTHAL < Wiesenthal Wiesenthal > 1435 hits since 18Jan98 Wiesenthal Letter 20 Sep 13/97 Jews killing Ukrainians in Lviv September 13, 1997 Simon Wiesenthal Jewish Documentation Center Salztorgasse 6 1010 Vienna Austria Dear Mr. Wiesenthal: In my letter to you of September 12, I presented the testimony of Erwin Schulz to the effect that in the few days prior to the arrival of German forces in Lviv in 1941, some 5,000 inhabitants of the Lviv region, predominantly Ukrainians and Poles, had been killed, and that the killing had been conducted "under the leadership of Jewish functionaries and with the participation of the Jewish inhabitants of Lemberg." The continuing question before us can be broken down into two parts: (1) Were such large numbers of Ukrainians and Poles killed? (2) What ethnic groups were most responsible for the killing? On the first question, there does not appear to be much doubt - every one of the half-dozen sources that I consulted agree that the slaughter did take place. In fact, in the last quotation of the following set of six, you yourself, Mr. Wiesenthal, can be seen to agree: Before fleeing the German advance the Soviet occupational regime murdered thousands of Ukrainian civilians, mainly members of the city's [Lviv's] intellige