ETHICAL CHOICES REVISITED

Let's start with a few questions:

• Should Vincent Browne have sent an uninformed journalist to interview Albert Folens about his wartime activities when Albert asked for the journalist to be informed and presumably Browne had agreed?
• Was it ethical for a journalist with an agenda to harrass a traumatised man over three hours in an "interview"?
• Was it ethical for the journalist to then attempt to publish material vilifying Folens without a shred of evidence?
• Was it ethical for Browne to refuse to publish the material and what were his reasons?
• Was it ethical for the journalist to then seek dirt on Folens from a Jewish organisation in the course of which he made false allegations against Folens?
• Was it ethical for a TV production company to compile a programme containing serious allegations about Folens for which there was not a shred of evidence?
• Was it ethical for the journalist to peddle this material to the TV company?
• Was it ethical for RTÉ to broadcast this programme when the same conditions as led Browne to refuse publication still pertained?
• Was it ethical for RTÉ liveline programme to tee up Leentje Folens for a confrontation with the journalist on air and then broadcast a grovelling statement instead?

I imagine Albert got a fright when, in 1985, he learned that Vincent Browne, then editor of the Sunday Tribune, wanted to send a journalist to interview him about his activities during WWII some 40 years earlier. He, perhaps reluctantly, agreed but stipulated that the journalist should be an informed person who was familiar with the period in question.

Well, the journalist who finally turned up on his doorstep, was clearly not informed, and subjected him to a three hour harangue attempting to get him to admit he was a war criminal.

Despite Albert admitting what he had actually done during the war, the journalist clearly thought there was more to it and just went on and on with his relentless questioning. Talk about a brutal interrogation. The journalist later boasted that it was like peeling the layers of an onion, and this on a man who had been seriously traumatised during WWII.

As it happened the journalist didn't get any more out of Albert than he had initially admitted to and this fell far short of the war crimes the journalist had hoped for, and, indeed, was convinced of.

In the event Browne refused to publish the journalist's piece, writing to Folens that the sparse evidence did not justify publication and that publication would be disproportionate given its likely effect on Folens' family and business.

The "interview", or at least part of it, was taped, but Browne refused Folens' request for a copy of the tape. He did agree, however, along with the journalist, to ensure that should any of the material be used, Folens would have an immediate right of reply. And there the matter, at least in public, more or less rested for twenty years.

Meanwhile in 1987 the journalist attempted to enlist the assistance of the Union of Jewish deportees in Belgium to dig up some dirt on Folens. They approached the Belgian authorities but were told the file was sealed. It should be noted here that the journalist's letter wrongly stated that Albert had been charged with murder and torture and other crimes.

In 2007, a documentary production company called Tile Films was doing a programme on Ireland's Nazis and, presumably in view of the journalist's material, decided to devote a whole section to Folens. This turned out to be a combination of conflation, misquotation, guilt by association and whatever you're having yourself. It had no provision for a reply by Folens, who in any event had died a few years previously, and it featured him as an interpreter in a reconstruction of a brutal Nazi interrogation.

The programme was extensively trailed in the media and when the Folens family learned of it Juliette, Albert's widow, went to court to vindicate Albert's right of reply. In the court settlement, it was agreed that a statement from Juliette, to the effect that her husband was not a Nazi and had never worked for the Gestapo, would be included in the broadcast version of the programme, and that the interrogation scene would be dropped.

This was done, but the cumulative effect of the programme was to leave the impression that Albert was a war criminal, the details of which remained to be discovered. This impression lay heavily on the family and is still around. This is clear from the Liveline programme of 2016 and the 2023 novel The Bee Sting. [Liveline 2016 and Bee Sting 2023]

Now go back up top and re-read the ethical questions I have outlined.

And get Leentje's book here.