Welcome Information Connoisseurs

Welcome Information Connoisseurs

Monday, April 26, 2010

Correspondence with New York Times Reporter Patricia Cohen

Dear Patricia Cohen

In your article about Irène Némirovsky in the New York Times of April 25, "Assessing Jewish Identity of Author Killed by Nazis," you say that Némirovsky was "killed" in Auschwitz rather than having died there of natural causes, such as the typhus plague that was raging at the time.

Was she shot or gassed, according to your information?

Sincerely, Michael Hoffman

From Patricia Cohen:

She died of typhus a month after arriving. Patti Cohen

Dear Patti

If she died of typhus, why did you write that she was "killed"?

Sincerely, Michael Hoffman

From Patricia Cohen:

I don't consider dying in a concentration camp from typhus, untreated, as dying of "natural causes" as you put it in your email.

patti cohen

(End quote)

***

9 comments:

Joe O said...

Weren't there typhus wards where some people recovered from the disease? Weren't the heads shaved to stop the spread of typhus?

Anonymous said...

Perhaps the ADL should investigate typhus for hate crimes.

Anonymous said...

I read with some interest your exchange of emails with New York Times reporter Patricia Cohen concerning the circumstances surrounding the death of Irene Nemirsovsky in Auschwitz as it appears on your blog.

Cohen's idea of a person being placed by the state into an dire situation which then causes her death being the equivalent of outright murder is a compelling one. It moved me to try the following experiment:

Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: "We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?"

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it."

Source: 60 Minutes (12 May 1996)

What if the word "died" were replaced by "killed," I wondered? Now the exchange between Stahl and Albright reads:

"We have heard that a half million children have been killed. I mean, that's more children than were killed in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?"

"I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it."

What a difference a single word makes!

By the way, the last time I saw Albright on network TV news she was visiting the Yad Vashem "Holocaust" memorial. The US Secretary of State was teary and visibly quite moved.

S.
Alberta, Canada

John said...

Anonymous 3:19 has very disgusting pornographic photos of naked women on that site he has linked to here. Why allow that here?

Maurice Pinay said...

Does Ms. Cohen's construct apply to those who die from sickness untreated while forcibly confined within the walls of Gaza? Or is it only "Jews" for whom this standard applies.

Michael Hoffman said...

We did not see those photographs when we looked at the blog..

We have removed the blog address and re-posted the comment without it.

Note to Ditlieb: For the sake of youth and others, please remove from your otherwise excellent revisonist blog, all nude photos.

Anonymous said...

MICRO LIST OF SURVIVORS:

1. Otto Frank, father of Anne Frank. He apparently had venereal disease prior in coming there. While there caught typhus. Was cured from both of his diseases along with that of Stalinism. Changed his mind and came bak to the Capitalists who had made him dirt rich in the first place.

2. Doctor Josef Mengele. Got typhus, and was cured. Using dear lady's logic, he made himself sick.

3. Former Director Tadeusz Szymanski of Auschwitz. Got deadly sick with Typhus in Auschwitz town. Was brought to the best hospital available which was run by the Germans. They brought him back to life. Worked for some 5 years at Auschwitz. Never saw, heard, or smelt anything unusual there. Never saw any gassings taken place except those of cockroaches.

4. Former Director Kazimierz Smolen of Auschwitz. Got sick and was cured. Smolen worked with the Germans for some 5 years. He neither witnessed any gassings. Both Szymanski and Smolen worked just cross over to the alleged ''gas chamber.''
Most doctors at Auschwitz were Jews and Poles. Did these people deliberately kill their patients? Was that not the job of the Jewish Sonderkommando?
Something to think about.

-Ditlieb

Anonymous said...

The accusation of murder implies the presence of intent to kill. This is easy to understand. No intent, no murder. The lawbooks are full other possible accusations, but murder implies the intent to kill. The NY Times employee is acting as a propagandist and not as a reporter.

Anonymous said...

And don't forget that it was those men, women and children of Gaza who chased those poor Israeli bullets and killed them ......