I have been copied on the following letter, purportedly sent to a theater employee, concerning the movie. I’ve been unable to learn any further details about the sender or recipient, and consider the letter apochryphal - I might be getting hoaxed or scammed. But I still think it is a pretty admirable piece of work. I’ve edited it a little to remove a few grammatical errors and clumsy constructions.
As you are aware, the movie Expelled claims that Hitler, the dictator of Germany responsible for the Holocaust, was inspired by the English biologist Charles Darwin, whose explanation of the diversity of life has, the movie says, a corrupting influence on the morals and virtues of people.
Millions, if not billions, of people around the world understand and accept Charles Darwin’s theory, including many heads of state and people in other powerful positions. If it were true that this scientific idea was morally corrupting, it is inexplicable why they have failed to attempt to kill millions of people in gas chambers in every country in the world at all times during the last 150 years.
Linking Charles Darwin with the Holocaust is a trashy lie. The Holocaust was merely another pogrom - a big one, to be sure, but not different from any other pogrom in its motivation or result. Pogroms are religious riots that took place over many hundreds of years, before and after the time of Darwin. The first anti-Jewish pogrom I am aware of took place in 38 CE during the reign of the Roman emperor Caligula. Pogroms were characterized by the destruction of the victim groups’ homes, business, and religious buildings, and by killings. I have enclosed a photograph of some of the victims, all of them children, of a pogrom that took place in Russia in 1905, which was instigated and led by Christian ministers. Normally I would not mention that, but it has ironic implications for the message of this movie.
A variety of cultural and political forces made Germany particularly susceptible to anti-Semitic pogroms in the middle 20th century. Hitler is well documented to have been influenced by a variety of ideas, and he frequently searched for anything, from any source, which he could take out of context to support his views. His sources included Greek history and philosophy, Napoleon, Martin Luther, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and the Bible, among many others. It should go without saying that Hitler perpetrated the Holocaust because he was evil, and not because he was influenced by any single, particular idea.
My uncle and aunt on my mother’s side were killed in the Holocaust. My father fought in the war, and was wounded by Nazi gunshots to his shoulder and hip. He remained crippled until his death twenty years ago. His brother, my uncle, was killed in the war, shot by Nazi soldiers.
As a daughter of Nazi victims, and the only person with a personal stake in preserving the memory and honoring the roles of my family during this dark period of history, I must speak out against this film’s abuse of history. By trivializing the very real tragedy of the Nazi killings, by depicting peaceful and gentle college professors as cheerleaders for killings, gas chambers, concentration camps, and other Nazi-style crimes against humanity, the film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed fulfills no other function than excusing Nazi hatred. For who, if this movie’s abhorrent claims are true, could be held to account for their actions in support of the Nazi regime, when they had been inevitably corrupted by a dangerous and virulent idea to which people can have no immunity? By promoting this viewpoint, the film smears the most respected pillars of our American communities and attacks the foundation of American values and liberties.
Despite my opposition to and contempt for this film, I support your theater company’s right to screen the movie, if they choose to do so. Worse than the expression of Expelled’s disgusting morals would be the suppression of even such hateful speech as they peddle. I realize you will have little, if any control on a decision to screen it. Still, I cannot help but express my misgivings, as such an attack on civilization as Expelled represents should not go unanswered in civil society.
