He aided the Nazis before he shaped the minds of Irish children

Posted on Wednesday, August 17, 2011 at 11:10 AM

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Schoolbook publisher Albert Folens
(Irish Independent)

Last night I got my first look at my daughter's booklist for the coming school year. One book in particular caught my eye - The United States & The World 1945-1989. My problem with this book is that it's published by Folens, a company founded by a man who aided the Gestapo in his native Belgium during WWII.

Albert Folens escaped from prison and made his way to Ireland under a false passport. Folens then got work as a teacher before setting up his publishing company.

Folens and his defenders claim that he was never in the Gestapo. His daughter says he only joined the Flemish Legion, which consisted of 300,000 men. One to two thousand is probably more like it. If Folens wasn't a Nazi he was one of their fascist first cousins.

It wasn't like he was repentant after the war either. In a 1986 interview – only aired in 2007 – he denied he was anything like a Nazi. Almost in the next breath, however, he put his extreme anti-Americanism out there, calling the Americans "stupid and criminal" for insisting on a "complete surrender" by the Nazis. "And that's the stupidity of the Roosevelt. A sick man with a sick mind and ignorant."

This is the man who set about building Ireland's leading schoolbook publishing company. This is the man whose history books "helped to shape the minds" of generations of Irish school children.

Folens died back in 2003, but his family still owns the company. I see no reason to assume that the culture established by this virulent anti-American will have changed much.

Funny thing is I first got really angry at one of the Folens texts before I heard about his fascist past. I remember hitting the roof when my oldest daughter showed me her 6th grade history book back in 2002. The book's short section on World War II downplayed what the Nazis had done, but turned Hiroshima and Nagasaki into the most unspeakable crimes ever. It was all done in a cunning way, through the fictional memory of a fictional character who was supposedly remembering the horror of hearing about the bombings on Irish radio.

Then when I first learned of Folens' past I was angry about that book from 2002 all over again. I wanted a total ban on Folens' books in this house. That wasn't really practical, unfortunately, but there's no way I want this bigoted anti-American's legacy landing in in my house ever again. My daughter will have to survive with another publisher's text.

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JamesDempsey | Aug 17, 2011, 12:41 PM EDT

@The Yank I feel you are over reacting a small bit by wanting to ban Folens books from your house, after all they are merely the publishers and the content of the books is influenced by the current curriculum in schools. I feel JamieLM makes a fine point in saying that you may use this as an example to your daughters about the different perspectives outlined in different books. I have grown up with Folens books and have never seen any stories of "America's wickedness" that you speak of. I am fascinated by the story of WW2 and have spent thousands of hours reading and watching programs about it from all perspectives and I have come to the conclusion that all parties involved were guilty of "wickedness". That said some were a lot more wicked than others. I believe that the decision to drop a nuclear weapon on Japan saved not only American lives but also Japanese lives. I dont know the text that you speak of that down plays Nazi wickedness, but I highly doubt that it was downplaying it or trying to excuse it. And just before you question my own family history in the World wars, my great grandfather served with the canadian army in WW1 and my grandfather served with the royal navy in WW2

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TheYank | Aug 17, 2011, 11:28 AM EDT

jamieLM,

As you might have guessed, I don't let those sentiments go unchallenged and in fairness to my daughter she is actually keen enough to seek out other sources. I just don't like giving money to that outfit.

But you know and I know that there are many children whose parents may have only heard the same stories of 'America's wickedness' thanks to Folens books. Many of those will not go looking for other sources or care much. They'll just absorb and push that to the back of their minds, where it will be fertile ground for latter day anti-American sentiments to take root.

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jamieLM | Aug 17, 2011, 11:09 AM EDT

You can give your daughter a more balanced perspective of WWII and teach her that reading one book, text book or not, doesn't provide that perspective and may not be historically accurate. My grandfather fought in the South Pacific during WWII and was on Iwo Jima, Okinawa, the Phillipines, Luzon, etc. His 1st hand experiences of seeing Japanese atrocities (babies & children beheaded, women raped & bayoneted) towards the civilian populations, let alone U.S. soldiers, on these islands are chilling, to put it mildly. He firmly believes the atomic bombs were necessary and saved millions of Japanese and American lives because the Japanese military warlords didn't think surrendering was "honorable" and wanted to fight to the death - theirs and everyone elses. The 2nd bomb would not have been dropped had there been a surrender after the 1st one and they were warned ahead of time. I don't know the age of your daughter, but when she's older, she should expand her reading on WWII. Meanwhile, you can give her a home education on WWII.

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