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US Newswire


New York, Wednesday, November 5, 2003

 

'Homes & Gardens' Admits Publication of 1938 Pro-Hitler Article Was 'Appalling,' Drops Effort to Suppress Reprints

Contact: Rafael Medoff of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, 215-635-5622

Homes & Gardens ...MELROSE PARK, Pa., Nov. 5 [U.S. Newswire] -- Following protests by The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies and a petition signed by Holocaust educators from around the world, the publisher of the British magazine Homes & Gardens has said it is "appalled" that it published an article in 1938 glamorizing Adolf Hitler, and it has withdrawn its previous objections to the reproduction of the article.

The controversy began earlier this year, when IPC Media -- the largest British media company, publisher of 76 magazines -- pressured Simon Waldman of The Guardian to remove from his personal web site a 1938 Homes & Gardens article glamorizing Hitler and his Bavarian Alps vacation home. IPC Media had originally claimed that reproduction of the article was a copyright violation.

Website comment

THE self-important Wyman Institute posted the H&G article very belatedly, and long after the FPP website did so, to which the "scholarly" Institute of course gives no credit: indeed, we know that it lifted the images from our website -- to which we have no objection -- because we took the trouble to clean up the scans first. They have been on this website since Aug 19, and the text since Sept 26, 2003: Cover | Page 193 | Page 194 | Page 195 | Text of the article.

The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies responded [>] by posting the full original 1938 article on its own Web site, http://www.WymanInstitute.org.

The Wyman Institute also organized a petition, signed by 70 leading Holocaust scholars and educators, urging IPC Media to "face up to its past" and stop blocking the reproduction of the article. The petition drive was spearheaded by Prof. Paul Miller of McDaniel College, a member of the Wyman Institute's Academic Council.

Dr. Rafael Medoff, director of the Wyman Institute, said:

"IPC's decision to drop the copyright issue, and its revelation of a second pro-Hitler article in one of its magazines, are important steps in facilitating public access to documents about the failure of much of the media to tell the world the truth about Hitler and the Nazis."

Prof. Miller characterized the IPC statement as "a pained acknowledgment that they did not rise above the fray, but like so many companies thought more about financial gain and commercial opportunity than about one of the major developing moral issues of our time."

 

IN a public statement yesterday responding to the Wyman Institute's protests and petition, IPC Media said it "completely understands the concerns voiced by the Wyman Institute regarding sympathetic coverage of Hitler and the Nazi regime prior to the onset of World War Two."

IPC said it is "appalled" that Homes & Gardens published an article which was essentially "Nazi propaganda." (Indeed, the photos accompanying the 1938 article were actually supplied by Hitler's press agent.)

Moreover, IPC assigned its own researchers to examine the matter further, and announced that they have "uncovered a similar article, written by the same author, in an issue of Country Life magazine (also owned by IPC) dated March 28, 1936. We make this information known because the material is clearly of serious historical interest."

The IPC statement also declared that IPC will no longer deny "permission for reproduction of this article."

(The IPC statement is posted at: http://www.ipcmedia.com/frameset.html)

The Wyman Institute is now preparing a curriculum unit based on the Homes & Gardens controversy, which will be distributed to high school and college instructors. The curriculum materials will focus on the lessons to be learned from media coverage of Hitler and the Holocaust, questions of journalistic responsibility, and the importance of governments, corporations, and other institutions facing up to their ugly pasts and acknowledging the wrongs they committed during the Nazi era."

The Homes & Gardens episode is already being used as a case study of journalistic irresponsibility, in a graduate journalism course taught at Northeastern University by Prof. Laurel Leff. Professor Leff, a member of the Wyman Institute's Academic Council, is the author of a book about the New York Times' coverage of the Holocaust, which will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2004.

The 70 scholars and educators who signed the Wyman Institute's petition included: Prof. Michael Berenbaum, former research director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum; Prof. Richard Breitman, editor of the leading scholarly journal in the field,
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... that is, Elizabeth Maxwell, widow of the late mega fraudster Jan Hoch, aka Robert Maxwell

Holocaust & Genocide Studies, Prof. Deborah Dwork of Clark University, director of the first Ph.D. program in Holocaust Studies; Dr. Elisabeth Maxwell of England[>], founder of Remembering for the Future; Dr. Dov Troy, former director of the Jewish Educators Assembly of North America; Theodore Z. Weiss, president of the Holocaust Educational Foundation, which trains Holocaust educators; and Prof. David S. Wyman, author of The Abandonment of the Jews. (Institutions listed for identification purposes only.)

For a complete list of the signatories, contact Wyman Institute director Dr. Rafael Medoff


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, and filmmakers.

© 2003 U.S. Newswire

 

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