V. Walter Halchuk The Toronto Star 29-Oct-1998 We should have Holodomor classes

V. Walter Halchuk The Toronto Star 29-Oct-1998 We should have Holodomor classes

"Yes, but why stop at Holocaust classes? We should have Irish famine classes, Armenian massacre classes, Holodomor classes, East Timor massacre classes, Cambodian Killing Fields classes, Tiananmen Square classes, etc." � V. Walter Halchuk

Additional information on both Sol Littman and Simon Wiesenthal (because Sol Littman is director of the Canadian Simon Wiesenthal Center) is available on the Ukrainian Archive.

In the case of Simon Wiesenthal, the reader will find an introduction to him within The Ugly Face of 60 Minutes � once in that article, click on SIMON WIESENTHAL in the yellow CONTENTS box. For more information beyond that introduction, the reader can consult the Simon Wiesenthal page on the Ukrainian Archive.

In the case of Sol Littman, the reader will find him discussed toward the bottom of the same SIMON WIESENTHAL section within The Ugly Face of 60 Minutes already cited in the preceding paragraph, particularly within a subsection titled "Sol Littman's Mengele Affair." One way to get to that subsection is to click on The Ugly Face of 60 Minutes, and once within that document, to hit CTRL+F on one's keyboard, and then search for "Mengele Affair" (don't type in the quotation marks). Or, NetScape browsers will take the reader directly to Sol Littman's Mengele Affair when the link in the present sentence is clicked, though Microsoft's Internet Explorer will manage only to take the reader to the top of The Ugly Face of 60 Minutes, from whence the reader will have to make his way down to "Sol Littman's Mengele Affair" by other means. Incidentally, starting at the top of The Ugly Face of 60 Minutes and repeatedly employing CTRL+F to search for "Littman" will take the reader to the several locations at which he is mentioned, where is provided some indication both of the frequency and of the quality of Sol Littman's contributions to the debate concerning war criminals.

Another insight into Sol Littman can be found in a letter to him from Neal Sher from which arises the hypothesis that the two live within a subculture in which lies circulate freely, such that if we hear any member of that subculture � for example Sol Littman � say something untrue, we cannot know whether he is lying or whether he has merely been lied to by some other member of that subculture.

Still more insight into Sol Littman can be found in the letters to the editor of The Toronto Star written by Christopher Moorehead, Lubomyr Prytulak, Mary Radewych, and Matthias Schlaepfer.

And a veritable deluge concerning Sol Littman has more recently been added to the Ukrainian Archive, and can be accessed from the Sol Littman page.

THE TORONTO STAR Thursday, October 29, 1998 A29

LETTERS

Weigh evidence
from ex-Soviets
very carefully

Do our jurists need Holocaust classes? Yes, but why stop at Holocaust classes? We should have Irish famine classes, Armenian massacre classes, Holodomor classes, East Timor massacre classes, Cambodian Killing Fields classes, Tiananmen Square classes, etc.

I think Sol Littman has a good point. Sensitivity to genocide is important. Mind you, choosing one over any other would be very divisive. International genocide classes just might be the answer.

But let us not be so blinded by sensitivity that we convict on the basis of sensitivity and not on evidence.

The fact that Canada should, years ago, have prosecuted war criminals; that millions of people suffered unmercifully; that those responsible should indeed be brought to justice, does not warrant the miscarriage of justice today.

We must scutinize what is being presented as evidence.

For example, and this is where Littman and I disagree, we can not accept Soviet evidence � at face value � as legitimate. Today in any of the former Soviet republics, you can buy virtually anything � including evidence.

I trust that our Canadian judges are examining these matters fairly. Littman, in attacking them publicly for judging on the basis of verified evidence rather than inference, serves only to undermine the independence of the judicial process.

Littman, in his closing paragraph, states that judges must "avoid the unpredictable, offbeat decision-making we have so far experienced". Does this mean that the outcome should be pre-determined? What kind of "justice" is that?

V. Walter Halchuk
Sudbury

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