Chapter I	Tragedy at Mayerling
	Chapter II	Death of a Princess
	Chapter III	Malediction
	Chapter IV	The First Casualty of War
	Chapter V	Credibility of Foreign Informants
	Chapter VI	Confabulations of Nurse Nayirah
	Chapter VII	Jumana Hanna and Sara Solovitch
	Chapter VIII	Origins of the First World War
	Chapter IX	Ritual Slaughter
	Chapter X	Search for Implausible Narratives

Credibility of Foreign Informants  Many people assume that because a person is a national of a country, he or she is automatically also expert on the affairs pertaining to that country. Many immigrants to the United States are exceptionally qualified individuals, however, many are also deposed politicians rejected by their own people with an axe to grind, or people seeking only material gain with perhaps only marginal education. You should judge each foreign claimant on his and her own merit and verify his or her claims as you would with any other claims. The cases described are only illustrating this point and did not result in any serious consequences. However, in some cases, notably with claims of Kuwaiti and Iraqi nationals in connection with the Gulf and Iraq Wars, their claims have had serious consequences and contributed to deaths of many innocent people.

I was there  During a recent social gathering in an affluent suburb, the hostess was showing color slides of her travels in Central Europe. While showing pictures of Prague, Bohemia, she remarked that most of the buildings were undamaged by war save a few, bombed ‘by mistake.’ The hostess added that she was not sure whether this was true. An elderly lady from the audience exclaimed. ‘It is true! I was there.’ The audience seemed to accept her claim; at least no one contradicted it, as her age and accent corroborated her claim that she was in Prague at the time of the bombings. Being in the bombing target area, however, does not authenticate her assertion about the aims of the Harris Bomber Command HQ or the flight plans of British Royal Air Force.

The ‘mistake’ hypothesis was promoted in Czechoslovakia shortly after the war to alleviate the cognitive dissonance about Czech volunteers taking part in Allied aerial raids, greeted as war heroes, and, nevertheless, bombing their own capital. Indeed, this claim is refuted by the fact that huge Kolben-Danek industrial complex, critical to the German war effort, was located in Prague. One may also consult the relevant sections of Hastings’ (1989) monograph based on the AIR Operational Record Books. With respect to Bohemia, Hastings mentions only one navigational error. During a night raid of April 7, 1943, the 76 Squadron mistook a lunatic asylum for an armament's factory. The Squadron Record Book included someone’s, presumably tongue-in-cheek remark that the loss of 11% of aircraft in this particular raid was to be expected due to the fact that the raid was ‘carried out in perfect moonlight’.

Every schoolchild knows it is true  The hostess also projected a slide of Prague’s Horologium, located in a tower adorning the Municipal Building on Prague’s Old Town Square. Hourly, it displays a procession of apostles, marching to the tune of a bell that is tolled by a skeleton opening and closing its jaws to the tune played. As she displayed the slide, the hostess commented that in the Middle Ages the Horologium was judged so unique and beautiful that the city fathers blinded the person who constructed it, fearing he might also build it elsewhere. She added, again, that this story is possibly apocryphal.

At this time a voice with a similar accent rose from the audience saying ‘Every schoolchild in Bohemia knows it is true.’ However, visiting the very building housing the Horologium too can refute the assertion of this foreign claimant. Displayed in a glass vitrine, the Latin manuscript by Bohuslav Balbin states the Horologium was constructed by Mr. Hanus in 1490 and operated by him thereafter. At the time of Mr. Hanus’ death this duty was transferred to Mr. Zvonek. However, upon experiencing a major problem with the clock mechanism, Mr. Zvonek was not able to repair it, so the city fathers had to pay an outside consultant, Mr. Taborsky, to do the job. After Mr. Taborsky’s death, nobody knew how to maintain it, so the Horologium was defunct for more than a century. In 1865, the Horologium was restored and has been operational ever since.

The story of hapless clockmaker
Alois Jirasek in his book Stare Povesti Ceske (Old Czech Legends), told the story of the blinding of Mr. Hanus. This story of the hapless clockmaker is close to certain facts. The name is historically correct and the fact that the Horologium was defunct is correct. Only the time planes are shifted and an atrocity has been added. The highlights of Jirasek’s story are as follows. Mr. Hanus was sitting in his study surrounded by books and drawings. Two candles were burning on his desk and the logs in the fireplace were glowing. Suddenly, three masked persons entered the room. While one of them muttered ‘and now try to make another Horologium,’ the masked strangers restrained Mr. Hanus and, using the poker they heated in the flames of the fireplace, burned out his eyes. Months later, recovering from his ordeal but sensing his end approaching, Mr. Hanus visited his beloved Horologium for the last time.

Touching its intricate machinery, he pulled out one of its parts. The Horologium stopped. Mr. Hanus died a few days later. Nobody knew how to repair the Horologium and thus it remained defunct for centuries. Admittedly, this story is more colorful than Balbin’s factual account. Several of Jirasek’s stories were incorporated into the national folklore and later reported as real. Around the turn of the century, his reputation as the master storyteller prompted an interview about the verity of his stories. When queried by a Czech counterpart of Morley Safer, Jirasek replied: ‘Sir, I am a novelist, not a historian.’
 

References

Hastings, M. (1989) Bomber command. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Jirasek, A. (1981) Stare Povesti Ceske. Prague, Bohemia: Ceskoslovensky Spisovatel.

Krus, D. J. & Nelsen, E. A. (1997) Issues in validity of oral history: Credibility of foreign informants. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 85, 1288-1290.