kapelusznik18 True story of concentration camp survivor Mel Mermelstein excellently played by Leonard Nimoy-of Mister Spock fame-fighting the good fight against the holocaust revisionist IHR-Institute of Historical Review-who challenged Mel to either put up or shut up with his stories of his life as an inmate in a number of Nazi concentration camps like Auschwitz & Buchenwald in WWII. Told by the Jewish ADL and Simon Wiesenthal Center that he went for help to ignore the IHR's challenge and not give them any publicity by doing it Mel instead went full tilt on his own snapping at its $50,000.00 offer by it in proving that there were gas chambers and crematories at the camps he was incarcerated in, for being Jewish, as well as later getting another $40,000.00 in damages for the pain and suffering that the IHR caused him and his family!Mermelstein first caught the eye of the IHR by going around telling school children as well as their parents of the horrors that he suffered at the hands of the Nazis in WWII losing his entire family in what was called the Nazi "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" in Nazi occupied Europe. Trying to shut him up the IHR planned to call his bluff in making his plight or accusations public thinking that he's really full of it and unable to prove what he's saying only to have him win in court a libel action against It. And also by it having to pay out almost 100 grand to him, not to mention the court costs, he brought the holocaust revisionist and in many cases denial organization to the point of bankruptcy! It also had its wear-house in California fire bombed three times by outraged citizens that destroyed most of its anti-Holocaust as well as anti-Semitic material that it was, in many cases free of charge , handing out to the public.As big as a victory it was for Mel Mermelstein at the time it may well have turned out to be a "Pyrrhic Victory" for him in the long run. That by giving the IHR free and undeserved publicity that has now, some 30 years later, spawned scores of like wise holocaust revisionist sites on the internet that are still around-Like IHR-with us now and unfortunately still growing all over the net or cyberspace. This makes me feel that if Mermelstein listened to both the ADL & Simon Wiesenthal Center to just ignore the slings and arrows being thrown at him by the IHR it as well as it fellow websites would have died an lonely and ignominious death or never would have come into existence in the first place!

vidjunki Leonard Nimoy's acting is, as usual, superb and the story moves along at a decent pace--never edge of your seat excitement but not dragging anywhere either. The problem is that it takes a fairly complex court case and turns it into a good v evil morality play. This often happens when movies are made based on real events because rarely are the actual events compelling enough to hold an audience.The problem with the movie is that the viewer is left with the impression that Mel Mermelstein--a Holocaust survivor--took on a vast, well-financed, powerful network of neo-Nazi extremists who believe the Holocaust is a myth and was able to prove once and for all in a court of law that the Nazi Holocaust did indeed occur and thereby score a great victory for historical truth.In actuality, the case was not about whether or not the Holocaust occurred but whether or not Mel Mermelstein had a valid contract with the Institute for Historical Review. Mr. Mermelstein did get the judge in the case to take judicial notice of the fact that Jews were gassed at Auschwitz.This, however, was not a major coup for historical truth nor was it anything new. As far back as 1946, the Nuremberg Tribunal that tried the Nazi war criminals took judicial notice of the fact that Jews were murdered in gas chambers at Auschwitz--and that Jews were murdered in 'steam chambers' at Treblinka while at Belsen they were killed in a room with an electric floor.A fact is not proved to be true when a court takes judicial notice of it. Theoretically, a court should only take judicial notice of a fact because it has already been proved to be true. The fact that a judge in California took judicial notice of gas chambers at Auschwitz has meaning only to lawyers in a court room in California. It means nothing to a historian.In the movie, Mel Mermelstein proves that the Holocaust is true and the IHR is forced to pay him the $50,000 they offered to anybody who could prove a single Jew was gassed at Auschwitz and they are forced to apologize to Mr. Mermelstein for causing him anxiety and to acknowledge that Jews were indeed gassed at Auschwitz.Nothing could be further from the truth. The IHR in actuality settled out of court before trial because litigating the case would easily cost more than what Mr Mermelstein was asking in damages. The IHR did not have to acknowledge that there were gas chambers at Auschwitz and, although they wrote an apology to Mr. Mermelstein for causing him anxiety, they did not apologize for questioning the official holocaust story.There'a a big difference between a husband who tells his wife he is sorry that he came home drunk last night and the husband who tells his wife he's sorry that she was angry at him for coming home drunk last night. The IHR apology is along the lines of the latter. They said they were sorry that Mel Mermelstein got upset that the IHR asked for proof of gassings at Auschwitz. The IHR did not apologize for asking for proof of gassings at Auschwitz.The movie ends with the historical truth of the Auschwitz gas chambers triumphing over the evil of neo-Nazi holocaust deniers, all because one man had the courage to speak the truth. As far as genuine Holocaust scholarship is concerned however, Mel Mermelstein contributed nothing to our understanding. He did not submit any evidence that Jews were ever gassed at Auschwitz to either the IHR or to the courts. As far as the offer the IHR originally made in 1979--$50,000 to anyone who can prove that there were gas chambers at Auschwtiz--Mel Mermelstein was able to provide an affidavit of his own experiences at Auschwitz but nothing more. He submitted nothing that addressed the existence of gas chambers at Auschwitz. He didn't even say that he saw the gas chambers with his own eyes!! To this day, Mel Mermelstein has not proved that there were gas chambers at Auschwtiz and nobody else has submitted any proof of gas chambers at Auschwitz in connection with the IHR contest either.The fact that anybody watching this movie would believe that they understand the basic facts of this case but instead would have no idea of what really happened is what makes the movie so awful in my mind. It would be a pretty good little flick if it was presented as a work of fiction. Presenting it as based loosely on the truth is misleading at best and is more accurately described as a demonstrable fraud.

s_810 For a made for TV movie, it's not actually all that bad. Leonard Nimoy does a fine job and it's nice to see him step out of the Spock role every once in a while.Unfortunately it's takes a complex court case and turns into a simple good v evil morality play. It also unfairly portrays the villains as Nazis and anti-Semites, which they are not.Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the movie is the celebration of the judge's decision to take 'judicial notice' of pivotal facts in favor of Leonard Nimoy's character as a great victory when in fact this single action has suppressed historian's ability to factually investigate and understand one of the major catastrophes of the twentieth century--the Holocaust.

NumptyB I watched this drama on television and was numb afterwards. You hear of flat-Earthers and 'lunar landings were fake' conspiracy theorists and just say to yourself "well - they pays their money... that's their beliefs and they're entitled to them..." Then 'Never Forget' shows you, through drama, the lengths the stuck minds and morally blind will go to to deafen themselves and others to the truth. We have our own paranoid denialists in Northern Ireland, who only see the wrong done them never the wrong they've done. They spout the kindred of the poison Mel Mermelstein had to put up with. A good portrait of a man driven by his convictions: Leonard Nimoy certainly deserves praise for telling Mel Mermelstein's story, let alone turning in a fine performance in the lead. Despite any dramatic licence taken I'd set this TV movie as course text for history at Ordinary Level: it is quite clearly still needed.