achievement of the unit.
"It's no great accomplishment to liberate a concentration camp, not
compared to fighting the German army," says Philip Latimer, president of the
761st veterans' organization. "What we're concerned about is our combat
performance. The unit has a lot to be proud of ... and I don't want to see it
blamed for this documentary. I don't want the unit to be hurt."
Questions have also been raised about the 183rd Combat Engineer Battalion,
which the filmmakers say played a role in the liberation of Buchenwald. The
unit's commander at the time, Lawrence Fuller, a former deputy director of the
Defense Intelligence Agency, says the 183rd only visited Buchenwald after its
liberation, when General George Patton ordered units in the sector to see proof
of German atrocities. Mr. Fuller says the documentary's producers never
contacted him to discuss the unit's history.
Leon Bass, a retired school principal who served in the 183rd, calls
himself a liberator in the film and in the frequent lectures he gives on the
Holocaust. But Mr. Bass says he does not remember exactly when he entered the
camp. "I don't know whether we were first or second ... We didn't go in with
guns blazing," he recalls. "There was just a handful of us. I was only there
for two or three hours. The rest of the company came later."
The Liberators, fuelled by the public-relations success at the Apollo, is
gaining momentum. The Rainbow Coalition is sponsoring a similar gala in Los
Angeles in March. Ms. Rosenblum tells of a packed calendar of showings with
co-sponsors ranging from the Simon Wiesenthal Center to the American Jewish
Committee.
Copies of the documentary will be distributed to all New York City junior
and senior high schools, according to board spokeswoman Linda Scott. The cost
of the schools project, Mr. Rosenblum says, is being picked up by Elizabeth
Rohatyn, the wife of investment banker Felix Rohatyn, who co-sponsored the
Apollo showing, although Ms. Scott says that several philanthropists are vying
for the honour of buying the tapes for the schools.
According to a memorandum on the documentary circulating at school-board
headquarters, the film will be used to "examine the effects of racism on
African-American soldiers and on Jews who were in concentration camps ... to
explain the role of African-American soldiers in liberating Jews from Nazi
concentration camps and to reveal the involvement of Jews as 'soldiers' in the
civil-rights movement."
The documentary continues to be supported by a number of influential Jews.
PR guru Howard Rubenstein, who is a vice-president of New York's Jewish
Community Relations Council (and who also flacks for radio station WLIB, known
for the anti-Semitic invective it regularly airs), worked pro bono on the
Apollo event and continues to plug the documentary, despite having heard that
it is misleading.
"I have no reason to distrust Nina [Rosenblum]," he says. "She seemed very
able and honest. I hope and pray it's accurate."
Peggy Tishman, a former president of the JCRC and a co-host of the evening
at the Apollo, is sticking by the documentary too. Ms. Tishman says the
documentary is "good for the Holocaust."
"Why would anybody want to exploit the idea that this is a fraud?" she
says. "What we're trying to do is make New York a better place for you and me