DID SIX MILLION JEWS DIE FOR SCIENTOLOGY?

With the allies a few miles away, Dietrich Bonhoeffer knelt naked in the snow with his arms in the form of a cross and was executed by the Nazis. His family had money and power, he was a Lutheran pastor and theologian, and he could have passed WWII in comfort had he wished it.

Yet he participanted in a plan to assassinate Hitler, the plan failed and he spent most of the war in Tegel prison's cell 84 in Tegel in Berlin.

"Nazi criminal! Go back to Germany"

Bonhoeffer's death, the deaths of 6 million Jews, and the efforts of those who fought and resisted the Nazis are trivialized by the supporters of the Church of Scientology who heckled Ursula Caberta, head of the anti-sect commission of the the state government in Hamburg during her visit to Clearwater, Florida on July 22 and 23rd.

These scientology supporters held a broader definition of "Nazi criminal" than Simon Wiesenthal, one that encompasses any German they don't like, as well as Ms. Caberta's Americans hosts. Scientology children were lined up along the street near scientology's Fort Harrison hotel, and made to hold signs reading, "Nazis Go Home".

Being anti-Nazi is Big Business Some famous scientologists don't like Germans too much.

Scientologists Isaac Hayes, John Travolta, Tom Cruise have made public statements in support of the Church's assertion that it is the victim of religious persecution in Germany. Scientology spokesperson and president, Heber Jentsch, has been outspoken in his dislike of the German goverment, a government that keeps a watchful eye on groups whose philosophy or organizational model would support another holocaust. Scientology's founder, L. Ron Hubbard, asserted "Scientology is for the able" -- and the able are the wealthy and those with the wherewithal to meet its required minimum donations of thousands of dollars for each of its many levels on the "bridge to total freedom."

What People Die For Like most men of his generation, my father served in the second world war. So did both of his brothers. Nearly 20 years later, my father became a scientologist. He died at 57 years of age of cancer, a cancer that his doctors said could have been cured had he not chosen to "handle the condition spiritually" on the advice of his auditors and supervisors in scientology. Once the money was gone, scientology no longer took an interest in him. He died alone, abandoned by his church. You could say that my father died for scientology. But six million Jews did not.

Ms. Caberta, please accept America's apology.

Christine Norstrand

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