.
Solly
Ganor
[Photo
Exhibit Source:
rongreene.com/solly.html]
.
I. OPENING
STATEMENT
As
part of his mass-marketing campaign in publicizing his
autobiographical book "Light One Candle," on February 22,
2004, we were the recipients of Mr. Solly Ganor latest
such unsolicited email under the title "Shalom" (see,
Exhibit
1, hereto) which begins
with these lines:
"I hope
you will find the following article interesting
and encouraging.
"VISAS FOR LIFE"
An exibition created by the historian Eric Saul of Los
Angeles.
By Solly Ganor"
Unlike his other unsolicited
bulk emails received that were designed to promote his
stated autobiographical book, this one caught our
attention in particular because of its subject --on one
hand, and because of our recent exposure of Eric Saul and
his "Visas for Life" project --on the other hand. Since
this latest article of Mr. Ganor represents a direct and
frontal attack on our work,
and since this also has been posted on the Internet at
<israelim.com/s_ganor3.htm> (Exhibit 6, hereto),
we could not have let this
pass in silence...
The question for us was not
whether or not should we respond to Mr. Ganor's
"Visas for Life" campaign in promoting his friend, mentor
and coach Eric Saul, but rather the depth, the force, and
the manner of our public response. You see, Mr. Solly
Ganor is not an ordinary opponent for us because in a
sense he belongs to our extended family of Holocaust
survivors. How then can we turn on our "own" member, was
a formidable dilemma that we have never faced before.
Putting our emotions aside, we recognized that
embellished and fabricated autobiographical stories
coming from a Holocaust survivor are by far the most
damaging that can exist to the true history of the
Holocaust and its memory. The eloquence with which
Dr. Joseph and
Adrienne Lassman of
Northridge, CA, USA, expressed this very concern are ever
present with us:
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"There is an
additional disturbing element in the
broad spectrum of recording, archiving
and disseminating accurate information with
respect to the Holocaust. This has to do with
testimony from individuals as to their own
Holocaust histories that proves to be partly
or entirely bogus. Given that memories of
some persons may be somewhat clouded by the
passing of time, others have created their
stories as fiction out of whole
cloth. Some of these people have
exploited the empathy and sympathy of others
worldwide as they ply their "trade" as
victims and survivors of this terrible
history. It is as serious an issue
in studying the Holocaust as dealing
with and discrediting its deniers.
It is up to serious
Holocaust scholars and archivists to be ever
vigilant so that generations to come will
have a body of work to study and from which
to learn that is honest and
accurate."
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Thus, our task that we were set
to accomplish was truly formidable:
- one hand, we had to expose
the falsehood of the alleged autobiographical account
of Mr. Ganor who has been coached with tremendous
skills by no other than Eric Saul and,
- on the other hand, we had an
obligation to ourselves and our work not to let stand
unchallenged Mr. Saul's latest "Visas for Life"
exhibit in Jerusalem, Israel.
...
