Carlton Street in Toronto starts at Yonge Street’s frenzy of retailing. Carlton then moves west, crossing Church Street’s gay bars and the former upper-crust mansions along Jarvis Street. Past the tropical greenhouses of Allan Gardens, the stone fortress of St. Luke’s United Church on Sherbourne Street, and Bleeker Street where, in the early 1990s, prostitutes flashed breasts and crotches at passing drivers.
It is, like Canada, a mosaic of cultures.
For several years, Eric McLuhan and I taught writing and editing classes to middle managers on Carlton Street. The building was, like many in the area, a Victorian relic, now converted to corporate offices and boutique sales.
But one building stood out.
It too was left over from the days when a rising middle-class built three-storey brick duplexes in Cabbagetown – a derogatory term applied when newer immigrants grew cabbages instead of manicured front lawns.
The century-old building butted up against the sidewalks on Carlton Street. The original brick had been painted white. It had massive iron bars on all its windows. A heavy wrought-iron fence. High powered lights. A security camera over the front door.
“That man’s paranoid,” Eric McLuhan remarked one day as we strolled past. “He thinks everyone is against him. He’s right.”
The house’s owner was Ernst Zundel, for years Canada’s best-known Holocaust denier. At various times, opponents demonstrated in front of his house, left a pipe bomb on his doorstep, and set fire to his front porch.
His house looked like a bunker. Indeed, that’s what his followers called it – “The Bunker,” reminiscent of the underground bunker where Hitler eventually committed suicide.
Paranoia may be justified
Zundel’s experience suggests that paranoia is not necessarily a delusion.
Jews in pre-WWII Germany certainly had good reason to feel paranoid.
Christians and Muslims in India feel under attack by increasingly nationalistic Hindus.
For different reasons, the Black Lives Matter movement might be considered paranoid. Dark-skinned Americans can cite example after example of deliberate persecution by predominantly white authorities.
On the other hand, I would have to say, opponents of vaccines, masks, and social distancing ARE delusional. In denying proven medical science, they confuse the responsibility of not harming someone else with feeling like a persecuted minority.
Zundel insisted he was being persecuted for asking a simple six-word question, “Did six million Jews really die?”
But he went beyond merely asking the question. From his house on Carlton Street, Zundel ran a publishing firm called Samisdat, printing anti-Semitic pamphlets and texts, including his own book titled The Hitler We Loved and Why.
Judgement catches up
After living 40 years in Canada, Zundel eventually abandoned The Bunker on Carlton Street, and moved to the U.S. in 2000, vowing never to return. Three years later, the U.S. expelled him. Canada deported him to Germany as a threat to national security. German prosecutors charged him with 14 counts of inciting hatred. He was found guilty and sentenced to five years in jail. After credit for time already served in hail, he served only three years .
Most sources say Zundel died August 5, 2017, this week three years ago. Other sources give his death as August 6 – by a nice coincidence, the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, linking one atrocity to another.
The Holocaust killed six million over six years; two atomic bombs killed 200,000 in seconds, and left many thousands more suffering lifelong effects.
I’m not sure why one act is considered heinous; the other, not.
Or why we don’t get equally upset about the Holomodor, the deliberate starvation of seven million Ukrainians, possibly up to 12 million, by Stalin’s Russia in 1932-33.
Or the more recent genocide of a million Tutsi and others in Rwanda, in 1994.
Disposable victims
The actual death tolls in these atrocities are arguable. Does it really matter whether the Holocaust killed six million, or only 5.99 million?
The offence is not the number, but the intent – to exterminate masses of people based on nothing more than their ancestry or ethnicity. With no consideration to their value to the country’s economy. Their literary and artistic merit. The fragile fabric of a community.
Or the personal tragedies involved.
In Rwanda, it is now a crime to deny the genocide. It is illegal to deny the Holomodor in Ukraine. Sixteen European countries have laws prohibiting denial of the Holocaust. Zundel’s conviction, in Germany, was based on those laws against Holocaust denial.
Hiroshima has not yet been as widely censured. Maybe it should be.
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Copyright © 2020 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved.
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YOUR TURN
I must have hit someone’s sensitive spot with last week’s column about the side effects of the pandemic. An irate reader sent me an email containing only the subject line: “You dumb white MORON”.
Other comments were more articulate.
My references to loneliness “struck a chord” for Jean Skillman: “Loneliness is not new, but it is a scourge, made worse by the pandemic.
“Being truly alone as a human is a rare preference. Even introverts prefer someone in their lives. We know that babies and children thrive with touch, and being talked to, and that they languish without touch and talk. We know that the best thing to do for someone is to be with them. We know that loneliness is not a good thing for most people.”
Jean then talked about what can be done: “So, in the pandemic, we are finding ways to be with others. The great conversations are about how to be with others so as not to put them and us at risk of overwhelming illness and death from COVID-19. Families, schools, workplaces, friends, companies, governments: anywhere that people gather for purposes of human endeavour are affected and are part of the conversation. We have lengthy conversations about the merits, and downsides of strategies to stay safe. Increased loneliness is a definite consequence of staying safe, and so we are recognizing it as a risk too.
“I am going to pay more attention to the amelioration of loneliness as an objective, and talk about strategies to meet it, of course, in the organizations I am part of: my now-online church, my women’s service club, my family, my group of friends.
“I belong to a very interesting initiative by a couple of British authors who wrote the Age of Discovery. They have set up a virtual group called Basecamp, where the structure is that through questions, we may come to closer understandings of each other, and that genius may pop up and flourish. They have an optimistic view of the human world, citing many statistical trends to support their contention of optimism without negating the things that need further attention such as racism. I commend it to you.”
“The facts you cite about the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic are mind-numbing,” T0m Watson wrote. “I don't have any statistics to back it up—just a sense from what I know is happening around me—but the toll on mental health due to (1) job loss, (2) the inability to go to the Y on a regular basis, (3) or other factors, is substantial. Couple that with the difficulty of seeing a mental health professional in person and the problem compounds.
“On the other hand, many people are trying to do whatever they can to help those who need help, so the generosity of the human spirit is alive and well. We'll get through this. Somehow. We will.”
Isabel Gibson noted my closing comments: “I make monthly donations to UNICEF. I don’t know what else I can do.” She replied, “Well, you can write about it, as you have. And that might inspire others to act. We're not going to fix this, but we can help.”
Ray Shaver liked Priscilla Gifford’s limerick.
Bob Rollwagen wrote twice. First, about charities: Isn’t it sad that one of the worlds larger organizations that focus on child welfare -- and proven to be a leader -- is now at risk because of some individuals seeking political gain over a minor judgement error. Most people involved in this debate are privileged white Canadians. This makes me cry.”
Second, about dying: “:ike a lot of human issues, dying is finally receiving more focus. When I look at the North American and European white-privileged regions, I believe that many die of natural aging based on their genetics, diet, and health care. They have family with them and they have a celebration they have planned. Covid has Impacted our privilege. This is unfortunate but not life threatening.
“I have to admit that some leaders see the death rate as collateral damage. What makes me really sad is the fact that the majority of these deaths are minority sectors of our population and the white-privileged focus is on wealth recovery and continued growth.”
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TECHNICAL STUFF
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PROMOTION STUFF…
To use the links in this section, you’ll have to insert the necessary symbols. (This is to circumvent filters that think some of these links are spam.)
Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” is an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. http://wwwDOTchurchwebcanadaDOTca. He set up my webpage, and he doesn’t charge enough.
I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, wwwDOTtraditionaliconoclastDOTcom. She also runs beautiful pictures. Her Thanksgiving presentation on the old hymn, For the Beauty of the Earth, Is, well, beautiful -- https://www.traditionaliconoclast.com/2019/10/13/for/
Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatsoATgmailDOTcom (NB that’s “watso” not “watson”)
ALVA WOOD ARCHIVE
The late Alva Wood’s collection of satiric and sometimes wildly funny columns about a mythical village’s misadventures now have an archive (don’t ask how this happened) on my website: http://quixotic.ca/Alva-Wood-Archive. Feel free to browse all 550 columns.