New York, Wednesday, November 5, 2003
'Homes & Gardens'
Admits Publication of 1938 Pro-Hitler Article Was
'Appalling,' Drops Effort to Suppress Reprints
Contact: Rafael
Medoff of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust
Studies, 215-635-5622
MELROSE
PARK, Pa., Nov. 5 [U.S. Newswire] --
Following protests by The David S. Wyman
Institute for Holocaust Studies and a petition signed by
Holocaust
educators from around the world,
the publisher of the British magazine Homes &
Gardens has said it is "appalled" that it published
an article in 1938 glamorizing Adolf Hitler, and
it has withdrawn its previous objections to the
reproduction of the article.
The controversy began earlier this year, when IPC
Media -- the largest British media company, publisher of
76 magazines -- pressured Simon Waldman of The
Guardian to remove from his personal web site a 1938
Homes & Gardens article glamorizing Hitler and
his Bavarian Alps vacation home. IPC Media had originally
claimed that reproduction of the article was a copyright
violation.
| Website
comment |
THE self-important Wyman Institute posted the
H&G article very belatedly, and long after
the FPP website did so, to which the "scholarly"
Institute of course gives no credit: indeed, we
know that it lifted the images from our website
-- to which we have no objection -- because we
took the trouble to clean up the scans first.
They have been on this website since Aug 19, and
the text since Sept 26, 2003: Cover
| Page 193 |
Page 194 | Page
195 | Text of the
article.
|
The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies
responded [>] by posting the full original
1938 article on its own Web site,
http://www.WymanInstitute.org.The Wyman Institute also organized a petition, signed
by 70 leading Holocaust scholars
and educators, urging IPC Media to "face up to its
past" and stop blocking the reproduction of the article.
The petition drive was spearheaded by Prof. Paul
Miller of McDaniel College, a member of the Wyman
Institute's Academic
Council.
Dr. Rafael Medoff, director of the Wyman
Institute, said:
"IPC's decision to drop the copyright issue,
and its revelation of a second pro-Hitler article in
one of its magazines, are important steps in
facilitating public access to documents about the
failure of much of the media to tell the world the
truth about Hitler and the Nazis."
Prof. Miller characterized the IPC statement as "a
pained acknowledgment that they did not rise above the
fray, but like so many companies thought more about
financial gain and commercial opportunity than about one
of the major developing moral issues of our time."
IN a public statement yesterday responding to the Wyman
Institute's protests and petition, IPC Media said it
"completely understands the concerns voiced by the Wyman
Institute regarding sympathetic coverage of Hitler and
the Nazi regime prior to the onset of World War Two."
IPC said it is "appalled" that Homes &
Gardens published an article which was essentially
"Nazi propaganda." (Indeed, the photos accompanying the
1938 article were actually supplied by Hitler's press
agent.)
Moreover, IPC assigned its own researchers to examine
the matter further, and announced that they have
"uncovered a similar article, written by the same author,
in an issue of Country Life magazine (also owned by IPC)
dated March 28, 1936. We make this information known
because the material is clearly of serious historical
interest."
The IPC statement also declared that IPC will no
longer deny "permission for reproduction of this
article."
(The IPC statement is posted at:
http://www.ipcmedia.com/frameset.html)
The Wyman Institute is now
preparing a
curriculum unit based on the
Homes & Gardens controversy, which will be
distributed to high school and college instructors.
The curriculum materials will focus on the lessons to
be learned from media coverage of Hitler and the
Holocaust, questions of journalistic responsibility,
and the importance of governments, corporations, and
other institutions facing up to their ugly pasts and
acknowledging the wrongs they committed during the
Nazi era."
The Homes & Gardens episode is already
being used as a case study of journalistic
irresponsibility, in a graduate journalism course taught
at Northeastern University by Prof. Laurel Leff.
Professor Leff, a member of the Wyman Institute's
Academic Council, is the author of a book about the
New York Times' coverage of the Holocaust, which
will be published by Cambridge University Press in
2004.
The 70 scholars and educators who signed the Wyman
Institute's petition included: Prof. Michael
Berenbaum, former research director of the U.S.
Holocaust Memorial Museum; Prof. Richard Breitman,
editor of the leading scholarly journal in the
field,
| Website
comment |
... that is, Elizabeth Maxwell, widow of the
late mega fraudster Jan Hoch, aka Robert
Maxwell |
Holocaust & Genocide Studies, Prof.
Deborah Dwork of Clark University, director of the
first Ph.D. program in Holocaust Studies; Dr.
Elisabeth Maxwell of England[>],
founder of Remembering for the Future; Dr. Dov
Troy, former director of the Jewish Educators
Assembly of North America; Theodore Z. Weiss,
president of the Holocaust Educational Foundation, which
trains Holocaust educators; and Prof. David S.
Wyman, author of The Abandonment of the Jews.
(Institutions listed for identification purposes
only.)For a complete list of the signatories, contact Wyman
Institute director Dr. Rafael
Medoff 
ABOUT
THE WYMAN INSTITUTE: The
David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, located
on the campus of Gratz College (near Philadelphia), is a
research and education institute focusing on America's
response to the Holocaust. It is named in honor of the
eminent historian and author of the 1984 best-seller
The Abandonment of the Jews, the most important
and influential book concerning the U.S. response to the
Nazi genocide.
The
Institute's Advisory Committee includes Nobel Peace Prize
Laureate Elie Wiesel, Members of Congress, and
other luminaries.
The
Institute's Academic Council includes 45 leading
professors of the Holocaust, American history, and Jewish
history.
The
Institute's Arts & Letters Council, chaired by
Cynthia Ozick, includes prominent artists,
writers, and filmmakers.
© 2003
U.S. Newswire
write
to David Irving