.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnFq4a1qn5M
0:00 [Off-camera: Oprah Winfrey show narrator] “The greatest love story we’ve ever told on this show.” Herman Rosenblat [JdN: died in 2015] received international
0:07 attention for his story about being a hungry little boy in a Nazi
0:10 concentration camp who was thrown apples every day by a little girl on
0:15 the other side of the fence.
0:17 Years later, according to the story, Rosenblat met that same girl on a blind
0:21 date in New York City, and he proposed on the spot. “I used to come by every day, and
0:29 bring the apple; I had it in my jacket, and a piece of bread, and he used to say “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
0:35 This story landed Herman and Roma Rosenblat on Oprah twice and in
0:40 newspapers all over the world. They also got a book and movie deal “ but this story
0:45 wasn’t true. “Why did you do it? Why did you tell such a big lie to so many
0:51 people for so long?”
0:53 “It wasn’t a lie. It was I with my imagination, and then in my imagination and my mind, I
1:04 believed it. Even now I believe it, that she was there, and she threw the
1:10 apple to me.” “How can you say it wasn’t a lie? It wasn’t true, and you know it’s not true!”
1:16 “Yes, it’s not true — but “ in my imagination “ it was true.”
1:26 Rosenblat says he made the story up to give people hope, and to promote
1:30 understanding about the Holocaust. But members of his own family say his real
1:34 motivation was money. “So you were not motivated in any way by money?” “No.”
1:38 “This is from your son. He said that he knew you were lying for years, and he couldn’t
1:43 get you to stop, and here’s his quote: ˜It was always hurtful. My father is a man
1:47 whom I don’t know.’ How do you respond to it?” “I don’t know. I can’t respond to it. I
1:54 don’t know why he said that. I don’t want ¦. Maybe I’ll ask him.” IHerman and Roma
2:00 Rosenblatt told their false story publicly for more than a decade, but it
2:04 all fell apart about six weeks ago after Holocaust scholars proved that it was
2:09 physically impossible for prisoners to approach the fence
2:13 at that concentration camp where Herman was kept, and that Roma’s family
2:17 was actually more than 200 miles away at the time. “Why did your wife agree to go
2:21 along with this? Did she ever express any reservations?” “Because she loves me.” “Why is she not here today?”
2:28 “Because I don’t want her to be here today. Too much, too much going on.”
2:34 “Was it difficult for your wife to have to go out very publicly and tell a story
2:38 that she knew wasn’t true?” “It was, it was, but she loves me so much that if she thinks
2:47 that’s good for me, she’ll go along.”
2:50 Rosenblatt is remarkably unrepentant about his years of lying. “I pronounce my
2:56 love for you forever.” “When you look at that, does it make you uncomfortable at all?” “No.” “You think that
3:04 was the right thing to do?”
3:05 “Yeah. “And, and, and while you’re up on the stage there, in front of all those people, in the
3:11 back of your mind, were you not thinking, ˜I’m not telling the truth here’?” “No. Let me
3:16 just ask you quickly here “ ” [Off-camera] “I didn’t hear you say you agree to this. Did we agree to that? Was that “ ” Our interview was frequently interrupted by this man,
3:22 Harris Solomon, who says he is planning to produce a fictionalized movie account
3:27 of Rosenblatt’s story, despite complaints from critics. Rosenblatt says he wants
3:33 people to know that he did what he did with good intentions. “So if you had to do
3:37 it over again, would you tell the same story?” “Yuh.” “You would?” “Yes.” Rosenblatt does say
3:44 that he’s sorry, but he’s only sorry, he says, that people took the story, quote,
3:48 “the wrong way.” His book deal for a non-fiction memoir fell through a couple
3:53 of weeks ago because of this controversy, but a fictionalized book may come out
3:57 this summer, and the movie version is supposed to, supposed to (excuse me)
4:01 start shooting this summer as well in Eastern Europe, Diane, and they say they’re going
4:05 to carry on despite the criticism. “I simply don’t know what to say ¦.. I mean, it’s his
4:12 imagination, but he knows it’s not true ¦. “He says he made up a fantasy world, and he was living
4:18 in that fantasy world. “And his son says he tried to stop him.”
4:22 “Yes.” Good heavens. Ok, thank you, Dan.” “My pleasure.”
…..Dietrich Eckart on the Jews as liars
I have been exploring the huge influence that the playwright Dietrich Eckart had on the new political leader Adolf Hitler in Munich in 1919.
Eckart was a gifted, senstive, good-hmored man, a real Bavarian, and a poet and playwright of tremendous talent. He lost his mother when he was ten and never quite overcame this grief, but it made him understand pain in others.
He wrote moving plays such as, in 1904, “Familienväter” (literally “family fathers,” that is, men who are the breadwinners for their wives and children). It shed light on men who because of their family obligations are at the absolute mercy of a tyrannical boss. But it is also about what really goes on at a big-city newspaper whose owner, in this case a converted Jew, is interested only in profit and power over the masses and the truth, and really educating the masses, means nothing to him. In fact, the owner, Hinze, gets the ‘family fathers’ to spy and inform on each other to him and they live in constant fear of being fired for no reason. Billed as a tragicomedy, it does contain very funny scenes and dialogue, especially in Bavarian dialect, Bavaria being sort of the Texas of Germany, but the story takes a very tragic turn and the ending is magnificently heart-rending. Because the villain is a Jew, the play was never performed.
But Eckart was also a writer on philosophy and on the Jewish issue, and it was he who promoted the importance to the German people of reading The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and got Adolf Hitler to read it. As Eckart himself says, “One can only read a few pages at a time, and then you drop it in horror.”
My God!! They just look like a lovely pair of grandparent!
Is there no end to surprises?
Is being such liars in their very nature or is it just upbringing?
J.G.