Open Letter to Roman Polanski
Dear Mr. Polanski,
as we read in the French and German newspapers, you intend to return volontarily to the United States to justify yourself against the unjust and arbitrary charges of the American sexual inquisition. Normally we deeply mistrust the „Lügenpresse“ (Lying Press), as the streamlined mass medias are appropriately called by the German political opposition – the same „Lügenpresse“, which has organized for years and years a witchhunt against you. But this time we are afraid that the message is true. That’s the reason why we are writing this letter.
One of the first European reformers, the Bohemian Jan Hus, was ordered to the Council of Konstanz to defend his thesis. This was a perilous enterprise, of course, and to make it sure that the hated reformer would come in any case, the highest secular authority, the German emperor Sigismund, guaranteed safe conduct to him. So Jan Hus came – and was immediately imprisoned and burnt alive at the stake as a heretic. The promise of the highest power proved to be a fraud, a vicious fake. This happened in the year 1415, and we think that once is enough. It is not necessary that history repeats itself in such a bad manner.
How trustworthy is then the promise of the American sexual inquisition, which calls itself „justice“? It’s the same „justice“ which blackmailed the Swiss and Polish government to deliver yourself at the mercy of that merciless sexual inquisition which is hunting you since four decades. Is it probable that US-authorities will respect the forty years old „deal“ which allegedly keeps you exempt from punishment? We think it’s more probable that the wolf becomes vegetarian. Even if we suppose – improbable as it is –, that US-authorities will respect that dubious „deal“, your personal presence in the US is not required. Once there, you will be a hostage in the hand of your enemies. And that would be desastrous.
Dear Mr. Polanski, the world – or the better part of it – highly esteems your singular artistic work. This part of the world waits impatiently for your film about the Jewish martyr Alfred Dreyfus. To realize that project – and far more than that: to avoid the malicious triumph of your sworn enemies, who are the relentless enemies of freedom and self-determination – it is urgently necessary that you avoid superfluous martyrdom. One Jan Hus is enough.
Earnestly concerned and with the best regards
