6. Paul Fromm
Paul Fromm claims to be the director of a group called
"Canadian Association of Free Expression". While the name
sounds innocuous, the truth is darker. According to
investigative journalist Russ Bellant, Fromm helped found the
Canadian neo-Nazi organization Western Guard. In a 1983
interview with a Toronto Star reporter, Fromm was caught
dissembling. He said he "never had any connection" with the
Western Guard, but the Star account revealed that Fromm
himself had had a letter published in the Star in February
1973 that stated "... in May, 1972, many members, myself
included, left the Western Guard...". Asked to explain the
discrepancy, Fromm said in a Star interview that it was "a
matter of semantics". In Julian Sher's 1983 account of the Ku
Klux Klan, Fromm is reported as saying that belief of a
supreme race "is a good idea." Remarks like this caused him
to be kicked out of the federal Progressive Conservative Party.
In September 1991, the Star reported that Fromm was ejected
from a Toronto meeting on race relations after he blurted out,
"Scalp them," while a native Canadian was speaking. In April
1992, the Star reported on Fromm's 1990 speech before the
Heritage Front, a neo-Nazi organization advocating white
supremacy. According to the Star, Fromm told the neo-Nazi
group, "We're all on the same side." Fromm later claimed in a
Star article that he hadn't known about the Heritage Front's
neo-Nazi views. But Bernie Farber of the Canadian Jewish
Congress disputes this. "He had to know," Farber said. "There
was a Nazi flag with swastikas, about 10 feet long and 5 feet
tall, just to his right. Furthermore, just a few months after the
Star article came out, Fromm spoke again before the same
group."
7. Conclusions
Although the holocaust "revisionists" and their defenders
claim to be in pursuit of the truth, the record says otherwise.
Although some claim to be advocates of free speech, their real
goal is a regime that would deny free speech, and more, to
Jews and other minorities. It is easy to dismiss Rothe, Irving,
Leuchter, Mullins, and Fromm as kooks. But according to
statistics compiled by the League for Human Rights of B'nai
Brith, anti-Semitism in Canada is at its highest level in a
decade. There were 251 reported incidents of harassment and
vandalism against Jews in Canada in 1991, up 42% from two
years earlier. The reader may feel that anti-Semitism is only a
distant threat. But consider this: many of the sources I sought
in preparing this article are listed as ``missing'' in our
University library. Some articles had been ripped out of
magazines. Others books, though still on the shelves, I found
to contain anti-Semitic or pro-Nazi graffiti. To repeat a saying
attributed to Edmund Burke, "The only thing necessary for evil