Western Jewish
Bulletin
Serviii}> Greater Vaucinirer since 1930
Survival
Voicing the past to save ttie future/12
750 APRIL 12,1996/23 NISAN 5756
Web Warrior
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Negev Dinner
Gala raises over $100,000 to build a park/17
Citizenship battle
Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel gears up for May 6 Canadian citizenship hearing.
ROBERTA STALEY STAFF REPORTER
Ernst Zundel is getting a breather in his battle for Canadian citizenship. Mr. Zundel will reappear May 6 at a Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC) hearing into whether he is a threat to Canadian security and should be deported.
"If this SIRC committee were to find Tm the ogre that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service makes me out to be, (111) be out of the country," Mr. Zundel said by telephone from his Toronto home.
Mr. Ziandel recently lost a Federal Court-battle to have a stay of proceedings of the SIRC hearing. The committee is reviewing a finding by CSIS that Mr. Zundel is not eligible for Canadian citizenship because he is a threat to the security of Canada. He has been convicted in his native Gemany for Holocaust-denial writings.
The SIRC hearing ran for 2.5 days starting March 25, but was put over until May due to scheduling problems, said Mr. Zundel. A SIRC official in Ottawa refused comment on the case.
Once the hearing is wrapped up, SIRC officials will release their recommendations to Canada's Department of Citizenship and Immigration which could launch deportation proceedings against Mr. Zundel, who is a landed immigrant.
On another fi:xjnt, Mr. Zimdel boasts victory.
Toronto's Sabina Citron's defamation suit against Mr. Zundel for conspiracy to spread hatred in a public place against an identifiable group was dismissed March 15 in Ontario provincial court for "lack of evidence."
The suit was based upon Mr. Zun-del's 1994 publication Power and a
show by CBC TVs investigative news program, The Fifth Estate. Ms. Citron, who could not be reached for comment, has pledged to launch a civil action suit against Mr.Zundel.
The Holocaust-denier's actions are also being felt on the West Coast. Victoria lawyer Gary Botting is crying foul after learning Ernst Zundel is using an 11-year-old videotaped interview with him to promote his cau.se.
"He's used my words and my statements to lay a groundwork of credibility for his neo-Nazi program," Betting, 53,
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Ernst Zundel faces possible legal action from Victoria lawyer Gary Botting, who disavows links to the notorious Holocaust denier.
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Memory on-line
Steven Spielberg aims to capture 150,000 Holocaust testimonials
TOM TUGEND SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
The making of Schindler's List was a triumphant milestone in the life of Steven Spielberg, but to the 47-year-old director it was a prelude to "the most meaningful thing I have ever done."
That "thing:" is a global, high-tech project, formally known as the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation - an ambitious attempt to record the testimonies of up to 150,000 Holocaust survivors, including those of Canadians, by the year 2004.
Sitting in the spacious office of his production company, Amblin Entertainment, Spielberg recalled how the idea first took hold of him.
During the shooting o{ Schindler's List, and since its release, countless survivors "have come up to me and said, 'Let me tell you my story.' But what they were really saying is, 'Let me tell a camera, let me tell history my story.'
"I just simply provide the camera, the microphones, the recording equipment and then the data-basing by putting together this organization to collect what the survivors have to say," he said. With most survivors now in their 70s and 80s, time is running out, said Mr. Spielberg, but "as long as there is somebody who wants to tell their story, there will be a camera and microphone for them to tell it."
That Mr. Spielberg "simply" provided the tools for the project is an understatement. On the backlot of Universal Studios stand four large trailers, crammed with state-of-the-art computers, cameras, and video processors, operated by 75 professionals backed by 1,200 worldwide volunteers.
One trailer holds 32 cataloguing stations, where computer programmers
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Steven Spielberg, founder and chairman of Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation with June Beallor, senior producer; Janet Klein (seated), Toronto regional coordinator; James IVIoll, senior producer.