Holocaust Institute Criticizes Academy Awards for Tribute to Nazi Propagandist

releases.usnewswire.com ^

[chance33_98]

Holocaust Institute Criticizes Academy Awards for Tribute to Nazi Propagandist

3/1/04 10:32:00 AM

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To: National Desk

Contact: Rafael Medoff of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, 215-635-5622 or rafaelmedoff@aol.com

PHILADELPHIA, March 1 /U.S. Newswire/ -- A leading Holocaust research institute is criticizing the Academy Awards for including Nazi propaganda filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl in the memorial tribute to recently-deceased movie industry figures during last night's awards ceremony.

Dr. Rafael Medoff, director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, wrote in a letter to Frank R. Pierson, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences: "Leni Riefenstahl was Hitler's hand-picked filmmaker, and she played a leading role in making propaganda for the most evil regime in human history. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences should not have included her alongside legitimate artists who recently passed away, such as Gregory Peck and Elia Kazan, but rather should have explained that she was an example of how art can be perverted to promote fascism, racism, and genocide."

Riefenstahl, who died last September, was personally chosen by Hitler to direct films glorifying the Nazis, such as "Triumph of the Will." Riefenstahl even used Gypsy prisoners from German concentration camps as extras in one of her films. Although Riefenstahl later claimed she did not support the Nazis, when Hitler conquered Paris in 1940, she sent him a telegram declaring: "Your deeds exceed the power of human imagination. They are without equal in the history of mankind. How can we (the German people) ever thank you?"

The Wyman Institute's Arts & Letters Council includes a number of prominent filmmakers, as well as leading artists, writers, and musicians.

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, musicians, and filmmakers. (A complete list is available upon request.)

[Bahbah]

I saw this and I have to say I was quite taken aback.

[boomop1]

So what,only when their ox is gored do they whine.

[T.Smith]

After all of the outrage directed toward The Passion because of it's "antisemitism" there is no possible way that the Academy would glorify a Nazi propagandist, right? I mean, that would be hypocritical?! /sarcasm

[hobbes1]

PHILADELPHIA, March 1 /U.S. Newswire/ -- A leading Holocaust research institute is criticizing the Academy Awards for including Nazi propaganda filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl in the memorial tribute to recently-deceased movie industry figures during last night's awards ceremony. Dr. Rafael Medoff, director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, wrote in a letter to Frank R. Pierson, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences: "Leni Riefenstahl was Hitler's hand-picked filmmaker, and she played a leading role in making propaganda for the most evil regime in human history.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences should not have included her alongside legitimate artists who recently passed away, such as Gregory Peck and Elia Kazan, but rather should have explained that she was an example of how art can be perverted to promote fascism, racism, and genocide."

Actually, I believe that is on NEXT YEARS agenda.

[Servant of the 9]

Yeah, it's only a blacklist if it keeps commies from working. If it stops anyone else, it's just being fair.

Whatever her politics, she was the greatest documentary filmmaker of all time.

So9

[Clodia Pulcher]

Leni was never a propagandist.

TRIUMPH OF THE WILL got prizes all over the world including the Paris Gold Medal the year the Nazis marched into the Rhineland and kicked the French out. Not bloody likely if it was viewed as Nazi propaganda by the nation most threatened by it.

But the "Holocaust" fund raisers must do what they can to identify places we can send our money...

And trashing the PASSION has about topped out as a fundraiser so here is the next one.

BTW would someone tell me WHAT the Holocaust has to do with the United States that we must have some shrine to it on every village green?

I thought it happened in Europe...

[hobbes1]

My point had far more to do with the anticipated treament of The Passion, next year, than any reflection on Riefenstahl's work.


The Film in question, was shot 5 years before German boots marched on Polish soil....It is kind of stretch to fault the director for events so far down the road....At least for serious people.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Gee can you imagine propaganda being disseminated through the movies?

Leni was a remarkable filmaker and should be blackballed no more than Eisenstein. Both were remarkable artists no matter what regime they worked under.

[Southack]

She used concentration camp inmates for extras in at least one of her WW2 films.

She made the "master race" film Olympia. She glorified Adolph Hitler and Nazism in Triumph die Willens.

She supported South African Apartheid, too...long after she had served her three years in Allied custody to become "denazified."

Yet she's received film honors in 1997 and 2004 from Hollywood...something akin to giving Bull Conner kudos for filming Birmingham firemen turning their hoses on civil rights protesters in 1960 Alabama.

[Southack]

c#10

[Southack]

c#10

[GMMAC]

Whining self-serving garbage like this largely results in the exact opposite of its intention.

Sorry but, solely from a technical point-of-view, Leni Riefenstahl was plainly very close to the premier, if not the outright greatest, cinematographer of the 20th century.

Although obviously unrelated, this is the same sort of spinning of reality which denies Shoeless Joe Jackson and Pete Rose their rightful places within the Baseball Hall of Fame. Like Riefenstahl, they should be judged only on the fruits of their labors and nothing else - period.

Hey, I'm anti-communist as hell but, I'd be the last one to argue that pioneer cinematographer and Lenin protege Sergei Eisenstein wasn't also right up there with the top half dozen practitioners of his craft in the last century.

Even if we're opposed to homosexual practices, I don't think it's too likely we're going to toss out some of the world's greatest Renaissance-era art solely because of the artist's particular personal sexual peccadilloes. In short, let's leave what is just political-correctness in yet another guise to the Marxists.

[LexBaird]

Gee can you imagine propaganda being disseminated through the movies?

Yeah, we could call it "Bowling for Columbine" and give it an academy award.

[Southack]

"I'd be the last one to argue that pioneer cinematographer and Lenin protege Sergei Eisenstein wasn't also right up there with the top half dozen practitioners of his craft..."

So Bull Conner should be given Hollywood honors for filming Birmingham firemen turning their water hoses on civil rights protesters in 1960 Alabama, in your view??

[bobo1]

The inescapeable fact remains; Judge not lest ye be judged, for what measure you mete will be meted out to you.

If Hollywood uses one standard to judge Gibson, then they should be judged according to that same standard.

I could care less about this nazi-propagandist film maker. I am more concerned about the nazi-marxist-propagandist film makers and actors in Hollywood today.

Good to see them trapped and drowning in their own hypocrisy.

Blessings, Bobo

[Joblie]

"Whining self-serving garbage like this largely results in the exact opposite of its intention."

In other words, those "whining" Jews, and not anti-Semites, are responsible for anti-Semitism. Why am I not surprised that a citizen of that despicable nation, Canada (a country which as a matter of deliberate policy banned virtually all Jews fleeing the gas chambers from emigrating, and yet also as a matter of deliberate policy allowed in tens of thousands of individuals who had actually murdered those Jews) should resort to such archetypical anti-Semitic sentiments.

Sorry if we Jews are slightly miffed at the woman who was one of the chief architects of the glorification of Hitler and the Nazi political movement; a man and a movement who together with many millions of gentile sympathisers across Europe were responsible for the murder of 1.5 million Jewish children.

No, it's not that we Jews whine, it's that people like you are both deaf and blind to our suffering. Not surprising really given it's exactly people like you who inflict that suffering in the first place.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Her movie work was brilliant. Bull's less than.

[Mr. Bird]

alongside legitimate artists who recently passed away, such as...Elia Kazan

Very nice touch. The Academy was split on whether to honor one of the truly great anti-Communists of Hollywood, yet tosses Riefenstahl in without batting an eyelash. In my opinion, it's not very responsible to include Leni among other honorees without a disclaimer.

Someone brought up the Pete Rose issue. Those of us who wish to see Rose in the Hall do not think his sins against the game should be omitted from his exhibit. They should be highlighted.

[justshutupandtakeit]

I very much enjoyed watching Michael Moore get his fat ass stomped by the elephant last night at the Oscars. That was the high point of the evening for me.