RePortersNoteBook.com: '' Piltdown Man Found in a Gas Chamber ''

Jul 30, 2011

'' Piltdown Man Found in a Gas Chamber ''

Begin forwarded message:

From: GiuseppeFurioso@aol.com
Date: July 30, 2011 5:59:59 PM EDT
To: jacobandesau@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [jacobandesau] '' Piltdown Man Found in a Gas Chamber ''

I had an intyeresting exchange with the librarian at my local library:

      A few years ago I asked the librarian why Wilkomirski's '' Fragments of Memories '' was still in the library's Holocaust collection when it had been revealed as a fraud. Her response was, '' says who '' to which I said the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Still she didn't seem to believe me so I went home and downloaded the relevant articles as well as one written by Mark Weber, I gave her copies and she said she would look into the matter.

    This past Thursday while in the same library I looked up '' Fragments '' again and found it to be listed as a novel. I then call another librarian over and told her of my past experience and asked her about the new classification. Her response was that the description of the book did in fact mention that it was a hoax. But why was it now being classified as a novel....surely the author did not write it as a novel, he claimed it was the truth. The librarian gave me a puzzled look whereupon I asked if it was customary policy in the library establishment to simply reclassify revealed hoaxes as '' novels ''. Still she didn't get my point so I brought up " Piltdown Man '' .      I told her that for years '' Piltdown Man '' was part of the scientific literature until he was shown to be a hoax...were the bogus historical writings dealing with this fraud then reclassified as novels? She now seemed to get my point.

    Then I told her that there are more than eighty thousand titles that deal with the Holocaust and it seems that this library has bought every one of them...and if they haven't could she name a few that they hadn't purchased. I was now on a roll ! I said when the librarian board meets to discuss a new purchase and one member for example suggests Shlomo Goldstein's memoir of his experience in seven death camps and the fifteen attempts to exterminate him, does  anyone say '' Nah...we already have a memoir of someone who was in eleven death camps and survived twenty two attempts to gas him ....has something like this ever happened ?...could she mention a single title dealing with the Holocaust that has been rejected. I know you do have meetings and publications do get rejected...I've been trying for years to get the library to have The Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs placed on the shelves ''. Her response was that I should attend the upcoming meeting of the library board and bring these issues up. I told her I would .   joe