Here in Las Vegas a secondary school teacher told her class that claims about the Holocaust were not so, the usual mouthings of someone out of control on primary levels of who she is. The whole discussion about deniers involves many layers of disquisition and analysis. In any case her inflammatory comments did not belong in the classroom. Word spread and the event hit the papers, here in Las Vegas, really a pretentious boonie town. I associate to Miss Kitty’s bar in “Gunsmoke,” all kinds of riff raff. When you read the local papers you get a stringent conservatism that is not quaint, but primal. Glen Beck is their man.
One thing led to another and the ADL and the school district got together to give a presentation to the students and staff. (Hey, how about reworking the curricula or courses for the staff? — not on your casino chip.) Needless to say, some students sided with the teacher who was transferred out of the school; her fate to be determined at a later date. They invited Stephen Nasser, a Holocaust survivor, who published his own book on his travails. I have met Mr.Nasser and I have read his book which was ghost-written. Mr.Nasser and I exchanged books; he never contacted me which I sense is because my book, in his eyes, is aberrant. In any case he gave me his business card which stated he was a Holocaust survivor and that phrase itself riled me. I had the sense that he was merchandising his book, himself and his memory; no doubt he means well and believes he is doing good deeds. Perhaps. He is a witness. For me he had turned it all into Shoah business.
I was unnerved and within a few weeks had written a short story for my book dealing with his approach and new venture in life. I truly believe he has no idea of what he is doing. I put the story away as it was heated, but fair, and I may go back to it again, given recent events. I came across a blurb which gave a website for the Las Vegas Review Journal’s video of Nasser’s school presentation. It did not give it all but enough for me to know exactly how he presented himself. A clue to all this is that upon our initial meeting months ago he gave me the exact number of lectures he had given on his life — perhaps a thousand or so; in that is all you need to know to extract a truth about him. He is not a teacher, he does not know, I believe, how to deal with young students.
Below is my letter to the editor of the newspaper about his talk: see the video at: http://www.lvrj.com/holocaust
Recently, I viewed on your web site Stephen Nasser’s talk to students at the Northwest Technical Academy in response to Lori Sublette’s remarkable dense statements about the Holocaust. I have read Mr. Nasser’s book and I have met him in person, in fact, we exchanged books — I read his. At that time I was considerably put off by his “business card.” It read, in part, Holocaust Survivor. I could not find that title in the Directory of Occupational Titles. Unfortunately, Shoah business continues.
I have written intensely about survivors in my fiction and I have worked with a few survivors in my psychotherapy practice. Unwittingly the traumatizing experiences Mr. Nasser has endured have led him astray. What I found remarkably obtuse was that he asked students at the close of his remarks to say after him, “Never Again.” Does it all come down to this clumsy use of a trite and hackneyed phrase?
Indeed, my talk on Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2007 at the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona before survivors and their families as well as servicemen took a completely different tack [See “On the Holocaust,” under pages]. Examining the Holocaust mandates more than showing slides of victims in boxcars; it is man’s nature that is on trial here. Apparently it is the species that creates willing executioners. Mr. Nasser had a chance to assist his audience in comprehending their own deficits, to look inwardly. Shoah business merchandises platitudes, capitalizing on the inherent horrors of the Holocaust. In the words of Holocaust scholar Robert Langer, we “sweeten” it. Quite unsettling to observe staff, speaker and opportunity squandered on sanitizing it. Nothing has changed. Curricula merrily goes on bereft of insight.
Holocaust denial has to be dealt with on a more profound level than evinced by this school district. (Indeed, a different kind of denial is in place.) The audience heard another talk on the Holocaust, a survivor came in to assuage their consciences, and everybody collectively colluded in making nice.
–As of this date, it has not been published, but you get a look at it.
Shoah Business
Here in Las Vegas a secondary school teacher told her class that claims about the Holocaust were not so, the usual mouthings of someone out of control on primary levels of who she is. The whole discussion about deniers involves many layers of disquisition and analysis. In any case her inflammatory comments did not belong in the classroom. Word spread and the event hit the papers, here in Las Vegas, really a pretentious boonie town. I associate to Miss Kitty’s bar in “Gunsmoke,” all kinds of riff raff. When you read the local papers you get a stringent conservatism that is not quaint, but primal. Glen Beck is their man.
One thing led to another and the ADL and the school district got together to give a presentation to the students and staff. (Hey, how about reworking the curricula or courses for the staff? — not on your casino chip.) Needless to say, some students sided with the teacher who was transferred out of the school; her fate to be determined at a later date. They invited Stephen Nasser, a Holocaust survivor, who published his own book on his travails. I have met Mr.Nasser and I have read his book which was ghost-written. Mr.Nasser and I exchanged books; he never contacted me which I sense is because my book, in his eyes, is aberrant. In any case he gave me his business card which stated he was a Holocaust survivor and that phrase itself riled me. I had the sense that he was merchandising his book, himself and his memory; no doubt he means well and believes he is doing good deeds. Perhaps. He is a witness. For me he had turned it all into Shoah business.
I was unnerved and within a few weeks had written a short story for my book dealing with his approach and new venture in life. I truly believe he has no idea of what he is doing. I put the story away as it was heated, but fair, and I may go back to it again, given recent events. I came across a blurb which gave a website for the Las Vegas Review Journal’s video of Nasser’s school presentation. It did not give it all but enough for me to know exactly how he presented himself. A clue to all this is that upon our initial meeting months ago he gave me the exact number of lectures he had given on his life — perhaps a thousand or so; in that is all you need to know to extract a truth about him. He is not a teacher, he does not know, I believe, how to deal with young students.
Below is my letter to the editor of the newspaper about his talk: see the video at: http://www.lvrj.com/holocaust
Recently, I viewed on your web site Stephen Nasser’s talk to students at the Northwest Technical Academy in response to Lori Sublette’s remarkable dense statements about the Holocaust. I have read Mr. Nasser’s book and I have met him in person, in fact, we exchanged books — I read his. At that time I was considerably put off by his “business card.” It read, in part, Holocaust Survivor. I could not find that title in the Directory of Occupational Titles. Unfortunately, Shoah business continues.
I have written intensely about survivors in my fiction and I have worked with a few survivors in my psychotherapy practice. Unwittingly the traumatizing experiences Mr. Nasser has endured have led him astray. What I found remarkably obtuse was that he asked students at the close of his remarks to say after him, “Never Again.” Does it all come down to this clumsy use of a trite and hackneyed phrase?
Indeed, my talk on Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2007 at the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona before survivors and their families as well as servicemen took a completely different tack [See “On the Holocaust,” under pages]. Examining the Holocaust mandates more than showing slides of victims in boxcars; it is man’s nature that is on trial here. Apparently it is the species that creates willing executioners. Mr. Nasser had a chance to assist his audience in comprehending their own deficits, to look inwardly. Shoah business merchandises platitudes, capitalizing on the inherent horrors of the Holocaust. In the words of Holocaust scholar Robert Langer, we “sweeten” it. Quite unsettling to observe staff, speaker and opportunity squandered on sanitizing it. Nothing has changed. Curricula merrily goes on bereft of insight.
Holocaust denial has to be dealt with on a more profound level than evinced by this school district. (Indeed, a different kind of denial is in place.) The audience heard another talk on the Holocaust, a survivor came in to assuage their consciences, and everybody collectively colluded in making nice.
–As of this date, it has not been published, but you get a look at it.