Australi EVERYONE is entitled to do a bit of gloating. And it’s gloat-time for Doug. Last vear I did a column on Donaid Watt, an alleged Australian hero who claimed to have been a member of the Sonderkommando at Auschwitz, meaning he was a member of the special squad that stoked the crematoria there. Stoker was the tide of his book, which was favorably reviewed in Australia and by Spectator magazine in London, whose reviewer thought it was the book. of the year. But I thought the story was highly unlikely. Not only miswies. “With re; Tve always niac.” West Vancouver Coun. Liz Byrd, on reluctantly voting for the ban on open fires at West Vancouver's Ambleside Beach. (From an April 16 North Shore News story.) Q00 “We are not looking after illnesses here, We are look er people who have iMfnesses.” Lions Gate Hospital nurse Betty Kavanaugh, on treating people at the hospital’s Outpatient Cancer Treatment Clinic. (Fran: an April 13 North Share News special fea- ture.) 000 “It was a bare bones facility when I started: black and white cameras, no portables and a small two- camera mobile. I remember ‘touring what was to become Presentation House with Anne Macdonald and the only way we could film inside the building was to strap this 60-po ... because a pyroma- und camera on the back of Doug Heal and use him as as a human tri- for a Poe te Dave, Program Coordinator at Rogers Cablesystems North Shore studios, on the humble begin- nings of local community cable television. (From: an April 13 North Shore News story.) o00 “It’s like Campbell’s soup. It’s just a big mix- ture.” North Vancouver City Coun. Barbara Perrault, on the wide range of bylaws cov- ering smoking in the Lower Mainland area. (From an April 11 North Shore News story.) mie f 4431. Clyde Ave . “West Vancouver (922-25 vi about Auschwitz bur also about Wart’s escape stories and derring do. Given his claims, I wrote, it was a won- der he didn’t win the war all by himself. “Rambo lives,” I wrote. My reasons for doubting Rambo’s exploits were many. He had kept quiet about them for 40 years, not even telling his family, and his memory was jolted only when the Aussie government offered $10,000 to any of its armed forces who had landed up in conccatration camps. I know a bit about war- time Germany and escaping, and his story made little sense. None of his alleged adven- tures was documented, for instance. Names, dates and places were notably absent. And although he spoke not a word of German he claimed to have travelled nearly 1,000 tailes on one trip using a German identity. Mostly by train. In war-time Germany? Forget it. He also put himself up as an intrepid fellow whom the “I thought they had made a mistake. It felt like I'd been punched in the stomach. I cried all the way home. It was 5 p.m. on a wet January night. I don’t remember how I managed to drive home.” Anne King, of West Vancouver, who was diag- nosed with breast cancer in 1992, on receiving news of thar diagnosis. (From an April 13 North Shore News story.) 000 “The ir or replace- ment of the t bridge as a source of transportation has become secondary to the status of the causeway.” North Vancouver-Lonsdale MLA Katherine Whittred, on the continued delay in Victoria’s making a final deci- sion the Lions Gate Bridge. (From an April 18 North Shore News story.) DRAPERIES Gestapo thought worth tor- turing even though he was a nobody. Fast forward to 1997 and the March 29 issue of The Weekend Australian, in which there was a whole page on Wart under the headline Shadow of Doubt. And what do we read? That the Auschwitz part of his story has been disputed by leading Holocaust researchers in Israel, Germany, Poland and Australia. Gideon Greif of Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial Centre in Jerusalem, stated that after reading Watt's account of Auschwitz he “could ascer- tain that the author was at no time 2 member of the Sonderkommando. “Doubtful also is that under any circumstances he was a prisoner there.” Werner Renz, the librarian of the documentation depart- ment at the Fritz Bauer Institute in Frankfurt (anoth- er research group) agreed, stating that the many errors in the book show that Wart 000 “We get everybody soon- er or later.” Lions Gate Hospital cast room worker Laurance Yuille, on the room’s clientele. (From an April 18 North Shore News mr ) 0090 “Are you out of your mind?” North Vancouver District Coun, Lisa Mari to Coun. Ernie Crist’s request that council extend the allowable speaking time on an issuc from the present four minutes * to six. (From an April 18 North Shore News story.) 000 “As MLA Jenny Kwan has shown recently... speak- ing for even four minutes is sometimes too long.” North Vancouver District Coun. Trevor Carolan, in response to debate over Ernie & BLINDS BY S.LAURSEN Another one of our designs. Ask about our Seniors’ discounts. For Free Estimates Phone 987-2966 We) Serving the North Shore for 25 years could nat have been what he said he was. Over to Franciszek Piper, director of research at the Auschwitz museum: “There is not any source that would confirm that among the prisoners at Auschwitz there was a British citizen from Australia, partic- ularly, that such a prisoner was a member of the Sonderkommando. “In the text of Watt’s book,” stated Piper further, “I noticed a string of infor- mation borrowed from litera- ture, which is presented as experiences of the author.” (Which I take to mean that it was filched from other books.) “On critical inspection,” he concluded, “immediate doubts arise as to whether [the] author was really a wit- ness of the events described.” It gets better. In my column I laughed in print about Watt’s claim that he had also spent some time in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and seen its gas chambers. I knew at first hand that they Crist’s request regarding councillors’ speaking time, offering his “radical compro- mise” of staying “at four min- utes —- in English.” (Fron: an April 18 North Shore News Helga Shahrokh Multimedia Designer Age 52 Sunday, April 20, 1997 — North Shore News — 7 did not exist. But Rambo claimed he saw Jews being taken to the gas chambers there and buried in mass graves dug by Russian POWs. “The Problem with his account,” reported the news- paper, quoting Fritz Bauer and other institutions, “is that there were no gas cham- bers at Belsen.* Asked about that, Wart at first denied he had ever writ- ten that there were any. Then he discovered he had done so. Sorry, he said in effect. “When I wrote the book after 50 years it was done from memory.” He claimed he had got the one camp mixed up with the other. Which is not quite on. The authorities who “Seti LTIGATION © ¢ Civil Litigation — matrimonial - commercial & estate tigation ~ wrongful dismissal — personal injury BALDWIN iil vSPAMILY LAW an Rambo unmasked at last accepted Watt’s story and paid him the $10,000 are sticking by their decision. But they would, wouldn’t they. Watt is now refusing all interviews. But a film is being considered. Or was. Why am I gloating? Because I was right and big- er leagues were wrong. And Because after my Rambo col- umn appeared, the usual Collins critics on the North Shore leapt into the act to make fools of themselves. —— The North Shore News believes strongly in freedom of speech and the right of all sides in a debate to be heard. 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