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April 27, 2001
Holocaust hoax in Okanagan
A notorious video is sent to Vernon's schools along with a faked
letter.
PAT JOHNSON REPORTER
Police and Holocaust educators are crediting Vernon teachers for
uncovering an elaborate hoax during the week of Yom Hashoah.
Teachers at four of the five high schools in the Vernon school
district received videotapes purporting to be approved documentaries
on the Holocaust. In fact, it was a notorious video that has been
making the circuit among Holocaust deniers and revisionists for
about a decade. The packages, which were hand delivered, had cover
letters with letterhead indicating that they were from the Calgary
office of B'nai Brith Canada.
The letter said the video was prepared for use in schools.
"At a time when so much disinformation is being circulated
concerning the Holocaust, it is time for the truth to be revealed,"
read the letter, which was signed by the fictitious Hymie F. Lipschitz,
co-ordinator for Holocaust education.
Dennis Hamaguchi, director of instruction for the Vernon school
district, said teachers abide by a policy of pre-screening anything
to be shown in class, regardless of its source. In this case, teachers
who viewed the film immediately contacted administrators, who put
out a warning to all teachers.
Teachers and administrators were surprised at the degree of effort
that went into the hoax and at the content of the tape.
"Everyone was quite shocked in terms of the misrepresentation,"
Hamaguchi said.
The video is by David Cole, who has since recanted the message
of the film. In the video, he claims to be a Jew seeking the truth
about the Holocaust and the "documentary," filmed at Auschwitz,
calls into question the number of Jews killed there and the methods
by which the atrocities were performed.
Vernon teacher Malcolm Reid said the package did not originally
arouse suspicion. Later, when he looked more closely at the "B'nai
Brith" return address label, he could see it was a fraud.
When he first viewed the film, he was more confused than concerned.
A former recipient of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre's
Meyer and Gita Krone Award for Excellence in Holocaust Education,
Reid said he often receives packages from Jewish educational groups.
He thought the contents were odd, in the sense that the speaker
was nit-picking conventionally accepted numbers relating to Auschwitz,
but he expected the argument to come full circle and provide the
truth. When the film ended without correcting the obvious distortions,
he immediately called the Holocaust centre in Vancouver.
He was told it sounded like a devious hoax.
"That's when I started to get upset," he said, adding
that the argument, though based on lies, was well laid-out. "That
did give me the shivers .... If I had actually shown it to my class,
I would have had a class full of deniers."
On the bright side, Reid said he was impressed at the way the Jewish
community responded to the incident.
"The best thing [to come out of this] is how quickly the Jewish
community jumped on it," he said.
Frieda Miller, education co-ordinator at the Vancouver Holocaust
Education Centre, said after viewing the tape that its contents
were typical Holocaust revisionism. However, the delivery of the
videos to schools was a tactic she had never encountered before.
"I've heard of pamphleting and leafleting and that sort of
thing," she said. "Nothing this overt."
She also credited the teachers and the entire school district for
their quick response. School officials immediately notified police,
the provincial hate crimes team and the Vancouver Holocaust Education
Centre.
"They acted wonderfully," said Miller.
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