READERS DEFEND WHITE AND ‘SOBIBOR’

We get letters . . . angry ones:

The mail was about 50-50 on a recent column about “Wheel of Fortune” letter-turner Vanna White, the anti’s finding my comments cruel and vicious. Other readers found me flip and unfeeling when commenting about the Holocaust TV movie “Escape From Sobibor.” And there’s more.

Look what you tried to do to Vanna in your sarcastic review of her book or tape or whatever the poor woman has released. Sure, we know she didn’t go to Vassar. You may even know her father abandoned her in infancy and she was raised in poverty. Not good odds.

But unlike many less lucky young girls from jerkwater towns, she made it--and made it big. Now she has the money for rent all right. Don’t think for a minute the public doesn’t know this. She is the epitome of the lost, not-quite gorgeous, girl on the run, with dreams--the kind of girl you worry about. But this one found a happy ending, and the public likes its endings happy.

May I suggest that the next time you fork out a couple of hundred bucks for a charitable deductible dinner somewhere so you can be seen and fill your face, do remember that when one of the less fortunate did manage to climb up to a three-figure income, you couldn’t wait to give her a nice, swift kick in the face.

ANN RUDY

Manhattan Beach

You may have omitted possible Vanna packages yet unopened: “I Vanna Be in Pictures.” A blonde Bulgarian immigrant finds happiness in a Hollywood 7-Eleven store.

JOE FRIEDMAN

Carlsbad

Regardless of what you thought of her book, and granted she is no Rebecca West, there was no excuse for humiliating her in such a fashion. The next time you feel the urge to take somebody apart, pick on somebody your own size.

WINSTON MILLER

Beverly Hills

Her popularity is no mystery. There is no record of her hurting others, criminal acts, etc. But Jack the Ripper got better press.

PAUL H. LOGAN

Los Angeles

In reference to your critique of “Escape From Sobibor,” I am totally shocked to think that you actually feel that the only reason people watch movies or read books about the Holocaust at every opportunity is because we are “slaves to our own fascination with evil and the macabre.”

How obviously naive you are to have treated this critique with such a flippant attitude. For “whatever reason” (to quote you) that we choose to view such movies, thank God for movies such as these so that we may never forget our ancestors. The suffering and torment would have had no meaning at all if not for one thing: “Never again.”

The irony of Nazism is not that it is commercial, but that you can treat your responsibility to critique such important subject matter (no matter how well-fed looking the actors may be) so externally and materially. This was not a sci-fi film; Stephen Spielberg was not up for an award; Alan Arkin was not playing E. T. These actors were reenacting events that went on in a real death camp.

If I were you, I would stick to criticizing science fiction and chain-saw murder movies and not subjects that are still so close to the hearts of so many Jews today.

KAREN BROWN

Canoga Park

Your casual remark (“Attach a swastika to a book and sales increase. So count on TV for a minimum of one World War II Holocaust story a year”) made me angry. Do you make that comment about the thousands of murder stories, about World War II stories, about black historical stories as you did about the Holocaust? Your attempt to trivialize the story about Sobibor was unbelievably crass and insensitive.

HAL FEDER

North Hollywood

I find it incomprehensible that a critic would say “enough is enough.” If the message were presented daily for the rest of your life, it would not be enough.

MICHAEL S. DUBERCHIN

North Hollywood

The misanthropic arrogance toward standard moral practices displayed by certain television producers--abetted by the all-too-complacent Screen Actors Guild and AFTRA--has never been more evident than in the continued hiring of one G. Gordon Liddy. First you see him playing a role on “Miami Vice,” then in a movie of the week with Robert Conrad, next on a game show. Is there no end to the cynicism of these sleaze merchants?

FREDD WAYNE

Santa Monica

The Fox network’s “Married . . . With Children” and “The Tracey Ullman Show” are garbage, for they stink. For God’s sake, say so. Please.

V. T. BOWEN

Long Beach