...to remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all...  
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The Solly Ganor Case of Credibility and Deceit:
Solly Ganor, the Lithuanian Holocaust Survivor,
Seeking Fame and Glory out of the Ashes of the Holocaust
With a Little Help From His American Found Friend and Coach, Eric Saul

by
K. K. Brattman
Managing Editor

Dated: March 11, 2004

I.  Opening Statement II. Who Is Solly Ganor?  III. Open Questions on Solly Ganor IV. Questioning Mr. Ganor's Grandiose Praises Purportedly his "Light One Candle" Book Had Received   V.  On Solly Ganor's Plug on Eric Saul's "Visas for Life" Exhibit in Jerusalem   VI.  Concluding Remarks

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IV. QUESTIONING MR. GANOR'S GRANDIOSE PRAISES
PURPORTEDLY HIS "LIGHT ONE CANDLE" BOOK HAD RECEIVED

We respectfully take issue and question the propriety of Mr. Ganor's claims with respect to the purported acclaims that his "Light One Candle" book is said to have received. There is no basis or foundation for any of Mr. Ganor's representations as they, at best, may represent Mr. Ganor's grand delusions and at worst, a deliberate campaign of misrepresentation.

1. On the preposterous representation that Mr. Ganor's book "Light One Candle" is considered to be one of "the best books on the Holocaust," and on the falsehood that Mr. Ganor's book has been endorsed by Elie Wiesel.

Let there be no mistake that no one single Holocaust scholar considers the "Light One Candle" book to be even remotely associated with "the best books on the Holocaust."

Being challenged by our Book Review Editor, Mr. Ganor in his email of February 22, 2004 stated this in response:.

(1)

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"I suggest you read Elie Wiesel's recommendation for my book, in which he compares my book to the best books on the Holocaust." [sic!] [Emphasis supplied]

Continuing, Mr. Ganor writes in the same email the following:.

(2)

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"See Elie Wiesel‚s recommendation on PBS web. (http://www.pbs.org/eliewiesel/teaching/activity1.html) You should be ashamed of yourself to accuse a Holocaust survivor like myself, and somone who fought in four of Israel's wars, on the day when our enemies are blown us up in buses here in Israel. Instead of pulling together our forces to face the dangers here in Israel and the Jewish people in general, you find nothing better to do than dennounce me." [Emphasis supplied]

Being also challenged by this Managing Editor, Mr. Ganor in his email-reply of February 22, 2004 stated:.

(3)

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"I think that people like you, who are quite dangerous, daring to attack a respectable Holocaust survivor like myself. If you have any doubts about my writings, why don't you look up Elie Wiesel's PBS website and see what he thinks about my book 'Light One Candle'. Or perhaps you consider Elie Wiesel a bogus writer too? And Yad Vashem is there to make money of the Holocaust too? ( I have been informed, that the Nobel Prize winner Eli Wiesel, recommended my book "Light One Candle‚" as educational reading of the Holocaust. See Elie Wiesel's recommendation on PBS web. (http://www.pbs.org/eliewiesel/teaching/activity1.html) In Germany and Japan my book has been recommended reading for high schools for several years now. This approval by Elie Wiesel, whom we survivors consider as our spokesman, makes me feel that I have finally fulfilled my promise to my perished friends to tell their story. I have finally lit "One Candle‚" for them.) My book and my lectures especially in Germany, have created hundreds of pro Israel and pro Jewish groups, even in the German army. This is what is important today and not some quibbling of some dry scholars who have little idea what life is all about. Today when a bus blew up in Jerusalem and we are morning our dead and wounded you sit on your Olympus and pass judgment on us. Today when Europe is rising in a wave of anti-Semitism and the Dutch are about to pass judgment on Israel, you should be out there calling on all the Jews of America to demonstrate against the onslaught against Israel and the Jews, instead of disseminating issues of no real value." [Emphasis supplied]

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We respectfully do not consider protecting, scrutinizing, and combing the sacred grounds of the Holocaust to represent "issues of no real value." And this belief of Mr. Ganor of considering the issues surrounding the Holocaust as being of "no real value" is most shocking and incredible indeed, if we are going to take Mr. Ganor's word that he is "a member of the directorate of the Foundation of Yad Vashem." My goodness if that proves to be true that a member of the Yad Vashem's directorate considers the issues surrounding the Holocaust of "no real value" then, we are indeed in big, very big, trouble. To us, to the contrary, there is nothing, but absolutely nothing, more important or sacred than that of protecting the sanctity of the Holocaust grounds with the best of our abilities. As painful as it is on us to take on a Holocaust survivor, we cannot close our eyes nor remain silent when we see the Holocaust to be used, manipulated, distorted, and tainted for personal gains and self-glorification. Silence for us is not an option. The time is long overdue to expose Mr. Ganor's grand charade on Elie Wiesel's purported endorsement of"Light One Candle" and the preposterous representation that Elie Wiesel considers Mr. Ganor's book among "the best books on the Holocaust." Much ado has been made by Mr. Ganor on the alleged endorsement that his book had received from Elie Wiesel. In response to Mr. Ganor's challenge as to "why don't you look up Elie Wiesel's PBS website and see what he thinks about my book 'Light One Candle'"(see,  Excerpt-3, 2nd paragraph, hereinabove), surprise, surprise, we did just that! 1. For starters, let us note that Elie Wiesel's website is not hosted by PBS, but it is hosted by The Elie Wiesel Foundation For Humanity at <www.eliewieselfoundation.org>. The vast PBS website, on the other hand, at <pbs.org> is a giant repository of their TV and educational programs posted over the years. Of course, PBS and only PBS is responsible for the content of their website. 2. On October 24, 2002, PBS aired a documentary on Elie Wiesel entitled "Elie Wiesel: First Person Singular." An accompanying webpage was created at <www.pbs.org/eliewiesel> where the visitors could buy (in the DVD or VHS format) the stated documentaty. Also in that elaborate webpage on Elie Wiesel (see, Exhibit 5A, hereto), a Teaching Guide entry is posted, where the vistor is directed to the PBS's "Teaching Guide"page designed for high school students (grades 9-12) at <www.pbs.org/eliewiesel/teaching/index.html>, (Exhibit 5B, hereto). From that PBS's page there are links to three (3) so-called "Activity" pages, the first one entitled "The Activity One: Listening" at <www.pbs.org/eliewiesel/teaching/activity1.html> (Exhibit 5C, hereto). There, at the bottom of the page, the PBS creator(s) of that page put this entry, with their own wordings and selections, as follow: Suggested reading:    I Have Lived a Thousand Years, by Livia Bitton-Jackson. Jackson, who was thirteen years old when she and her family were arrested, is equally compelling for middle school and high school students.    Light One Candle: A Survivor's Tale from Lithuania to Jerusalem, by Solly Ganor, is a gripping story about coming of age during the Holocaust. Today, Ganor visits high schools in the United States, Germany and Japan, teaching tolerance and inspiring young people to remember the Holocaust and its survivors.    If This be a Man is an important memoir written by Primo Levi in 1946, right after he came out of Auschwitz. He was a trained chemist, and in his book he is like a scientist studying issues such as: What does it take to deprive man of his humanity? How does man retain his humanity in the face of unimaginable deprivation? What is man when he is "nothing." Clearly all the text and the three book-selection made in the above referenced PBS page was made by the PBS staff and no one else, and most certainly not by Ellie Wiesel! The suggested reading material posted for the PBS "Activity One" was the opinion of the PBS staff and no one else. The wording used by the PBS staff to describe Mr. Ganor's book was taken literally from Mr. Ganor's mouth, so to speak. Indeed, it is he that is trumpeting all around that his book is "a gripping memoir that waited fifty years to be told" (see, for instance the last line of his own appraisal of his book placed on the back cover of the book). From here to somehow construe that this represents an endorsement by Ellie Wiesel is preposterous at best, and fraudulent at worst. Imagine if you will, that we have creatred a page on Albert Einstein on our website, and that at the bottom of our hypothetical page, we have put some books for additional reading on Einstein. There is anybody, in his or her normal state of mind, to construe that Albert Einstein had endorsed those books that we have selected? Well, this is exactly what Mr. Ganor has been doing with his purported claim that Ellie Wiesel has endorsed his book! If Ellie Wiesel would had supported this book in any way or fashion, even with one single word, don't you think that a quotation of that support would have made it into the book's covers of its recent paperback edition of April 2003? It is funny indeed how Mr. Ganor introduces his purported endorsement of Ellie Wiesel to his book. He cannot say "here is the endorsement received from Elie Wiesel and here is the respective text received from him", because no such a thing ever existed. Never ever since the book was first published in 1995 did Elie Wiesel made any acknowledgement much less support for Mr. Ganor's book and, Mr. Ganor is fully aware of all this. So aware that in fact he would not dare of putting this concocted support received from Elie Wiesel neither on his website nor on the covers of his book's recent paperback edition. But if "someone else" would put this falsehood on their website that would be just fine... And this is because that "someone else" could be made responsible and liable for the falsehood introduced. So the "someone else" scheme is essential in Mr. Ganor's scheme of deliberate deceit. Without exception, the "introduction" of his bogus endorsement comes, as seen in our received "package" from Mr. Ganor (Excerpt-3, 2nd paragraph, hereinabove), as follows: (I have been informed, that the Nobel Prize winner Eli Wiesel, recommended my book "Light One Candle‚" as educational reading of the Holocaust. See Elie Wiesel's recommendation on PBS web. (http://www.pbs.org/eliewiesel/teaching/activity1.html) [Emphasis supplied] Then, with this "implantation" complete with the "somebody had informed him," the trusting victim would allow Mr. Ganor to present himself, at will, as in this example of <israelim.com> website ( Exhibit 6, hereto, bottom page): . "With you[r] permission, I would like to add, that during the war, in Ghetto Kovno, I kept a diary. I was about Anna Frank's age at the time. I promised my friends that if I should survive the Holocaust I would tell the world what happened to us. For fifty years, I shied away from the subject until one day  the San Francisco historian, Eric Saul, came to Jerusalem with the person who saved my life at the end of the World War Two. He was a Japanese American soldier by the name of Clarence Matsomura of the 522 artillery battalion. Our emotional reunion resulted in the publication of my diary. I called it: 'Light One Candle'. I have been informed, that the Nobel Prize winner Eli Wiesel, recommended my book 'Light One Candle' as educational reading of the Holocaust.  See Elie Wiesel's recommendation on PBS web. (http://www.pbs.org/eliewiesel/teaching/activity1.html) In Germany and Japan my book has been recommended reading for high schools for several years now. This approval by Elie Wiesel, whom we survivors consider as our spokesman, makes me feel that I have finally fulfilled my promise to my perished friends to tell their story. I have finally lit 'One Candle' for them. Please, visit my website at: Solly Ganor Remembrance [Emphasis supplied] or as in the example from The Trebach Report website where in Mr. Ganor's published article "Conversation in Berlin" at <trebach.org/mideast/SollyGanor.htm> we see this PS at the bottom of its page: . "P.S. Solly Ganor's book: Light One Candle, has been recommended by Elie Wiesel as an excellent educational tool. See Elie Wiesel's recommendation on PBS web." [Emphasis supplied] or as in this example from The Tribulation Force website at <thetribulationforce.com/feast_of_purim_in_dachau.htm>, . "Mr. Ganor's diary has been recommended by Eli Wiesel and is taught in high schools in Germany and Japan. He has fulfilled his promise to his perished friends, finally lighting one candle for them." [Emphasis supplied] and so on and so on... We have emphasized above the word "diary" since that addition represents a new and unprecedented level of deceit in Mr. Ganor's representation --the subject of our next point below. .

2. On the absurd and insidious parallel that Mr. Ganor is making between his book and the celebrated published diaries of Anne Frank.

In his blind and unscrupulous push for recognition out of the sacred ashes of the Holocaust, Mr. Ganor is elevating his "Light One Candle" purported autobiographical account to a new and unprecedented level of deceit by claiming that in fact his book is based on his diaries he wrote while imprisoned. Indeed, in the October 26, 2001 article "Hope in Times of Despair," Mr. Ganor advances this truly extraordinary claim with nothing to substantiate it [Exhibit 4, ¶2] that:

"During World War II, like Anna Frank, I kept a diary which fifty years later was published in New York under the title 'Light One Candle.' It was later translated into German and Japanese."

And in The Tribulation Force website at <thetribulationforce.com/feast_of_purim_in_dachau.htm>, Mr. Ganor made this representation about himself at the end of his published "Purim In Dachau" article:

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Mr. Ganor kept a diary while in the Kovno ghetto, promising his friends that if he should survive the Holocaust, he would tell the world what happened. For 50 years, he shied away from the subject until a historian came to Jerusalem with the person who saved his life at the end of the World War Two. He was a Japanese American soldier by the name of Clarence Matsomura of the 522 artillery battalion. This emotional reunion resulted in the publication of his diary, "Light One Candle." Mr. Ganor's diary has been recommended by Eli Wiesel and is taught in high schools in Germany and Japan. He has fulfilled his promise to his perished friends, finally lighting one candle for them.

[Emphasis supplied]

If only could be true, that Mr. Ganor had a diary.... Not a chance in heaven! All this at best is Mr. Ganor's deep hallucination and at worst, a cynical way to equate his concocted autobiography with the great and invaluable documentary work left behind by Anne Frank. How then Mr. Ganor could get away with this incredulous claim? Well, that's easy just ask Mr. Ganor if you cannot figure out by yourself the obvious answer: the diary did not survive the Holocaust! End of discussion. Pretty sick, isn't?, to make preposterous claims without an iota of evidence. Yes, very sick indeed.

 

 
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