Ernst Zündel
Concerned Parents of German Descent
206 Carlton Street
Toronto, ONT Canada
M5A 2L1

July 20, 1983

To the Rabbis and Leaders of the Jewish Community
of Canada

My name is Ernst Zündel. You might have heard about me and my work and activities from internal bulletins published by various community organizations like The B'nai Brith, the Canadian Holocaust Remembrance Association, the Jewish Defence League, and others. The Canadian Jewish News has frequently carried news items about me, usually depicting me as a "neo-Nazi," a distributor of hate literature and worse. We are all familiar with the tone and content of such articles, but I include some reproduced clippings to further refresh your memory in regard to this issue.

In contrast to the biased and slanderous attempts to stereotype me in these articles, I have continued my efforts to build bridges of understanding so as to reach a consensus of opinion with the members of the Jewish community. Despite the malicious lies, threats, the vilification, the boycotts and demonstrations against me and my business, I have tried to make the local leaders of the Jewish community understand how I and many German-Canadians and Germans feel about topics of mutual concern, such as the Holocaust, specifically the allegation that the Germans killed six million Jews; the meaning of National Socialism and how the incessant (repetition) of these themes in our media of education, information and entertainment affects everyone-influencing our state of mind, our children, or businesses and our roles in Canadian society. I have earnestly and continuously sought a dialogue with all who would listen. I have attempted to discuss for the benefit of both our ethnic groups how you felt and how we felt in regard to the events of the past 50 years. I have attempted to base these dialogues and discussions on the bare facts and the whole truth, not upon fiction, half-truths and outright propaganda lies of World War II.

Privately, I can share with you my sincere happiness at achieving close contacts and fruitful co-operation with some truly knowledgeable Jewish persons and groups with whom I have initiated much useful work. Publicly, however, I have been rebuffed and derided by certain high-ranking office-holders of some very influential groups who claim to represent all members of the Jewish community. These functionaries have been obdurate and sometimes even arrogant in their refusals to discuss with me these very pressing matters of mutual concern. All I am requesting, on behalf of my own ethnic group, is a meeting of minds wherein we may strive for clarification of outstanding grievances, fears and animosities, many of which-I am convinced-rest upon very real misunderstandings.

As evidence of my bona fides, I have even enlisted the help of Metro Toronto's Police Ethnic Squad in order to attend our hoped-for informal get-togethers as neutral observers, but their approaches on my behalf to the senior members of certain influential Jewish community organizations have proven similarly fruitless. It is precisely because we have had so little success with persons entrusted with authority and responsibility by the members of the Jewish community that I now write to you personally in order to make direct contact with members of the Jewish community themselves.

I think that it is important for all of us to know first-hand what many German-Canadians and Jewish-Canadians think, but are afraid to say publicly, for they fear the same terror tactics which have been directed against me. Please do not judge them too harshly for their dishonesty and cowardice. The campaign of calumny and legal persecution, financial deprivation and murderous threats against my person, family and business would deter most people, whatever their ethnic backgrounds, from undertaking a task which is clearly in the public interest and especially in the interest of both our ethnic groups. I cannot say whether any of these dirty tricks against me were arranged by titular heads of Jewish organizations, but I can state that to the best of my knowledge, these Jewish leaders made no protest against well-publicized actions "on behalf of the Jewish community" which were calculated to destroy my livelihood and personal reputation. In view of the publicity in official organs of the Jewish community prior to the rally in Allen Gardens, Toronto, on May 31, 1981, I cannot see how it could be claimed that the leaders of the Jewish community were ignorant of the hostile intentions of the speakers who publicly slandered me, and of the planned demonstration against me which degenerated into a mob action through the encouragement of the so-called parade marshals. If this and other malicious assaults upon my business and my character could not have occurred without the knowledge of Jewish community leaders, then I must assume that these same leaders must have approved of these actions, since I have no evidence of any official or unofficial protest on their part. The Jewish community, for the most part, appears to be exceedingly well organized and close-knit, with a well-defined hierarchy-hence, it would seem impossible that such a community would permit, with full knowledge, but without its approval, individuals and/or groups to act in its name and against its perceived interests. Why were there no protests from responsible Jewish leaders against the defamatory and highly inflammatory speeches directed against me by "Jewish spokesmen" in May 31, 1981? Why have there been no protests against the slanderous allegations directed at me by the writers in the Canadian Jewish News?

Precisely because the community conscience of the Jewish leadership appeared to be dormant, I had no alternative but to contact the Metropolitan Toronto Police and Bell Telephone Company in regard to my personal safety, as well as the safety of my family. My objective was to deter, not to prosecute, persons who seemed so emotionally overwrought that they felt justified in making vile and murderous threats over the phone, including threats of bombing my house, committing arson, raping my wife, kidnapping and/or mutilating my children, boycotting my business etc. Prior to the mob action in front of my house, I had dismissed similar vicious hate calls as being the calculated and carefully orchestrated work of armchair warriors, but after witnessing first-hand the hysterical and rabidly hostile crowd which charged the police lines in front of my house, I concluded that the hate callers were capable of the criminal acts which they threatened me with. I therefore requested assistance from the authorities who had no trouble in tracing the identities and locations of the hate callers-most of whom were living in predominantly Jewish areas in Toronto. Although I did not doubt the sincerity of many of the callers, I still had no wish to prosecute otherwise blameless young people who have been filled with hatred by the incessantly overflowing well of World War II style anti-German hate propaganda. What grievance could I have against such people? What grievance could I have against the parents of these young people? They have, so far, done nothing to hurt me; nor have I done anything to hurt them. In World War II, I was a mere child, and since then, I have hated anything to do with war. I do not want to wage war against anyone.

On principle, I do not see why we of the postwar generation should behave as though we were living in 1939 or 1944. I do not want any of us to go through life bent over and weighed down under the unnecessary burden of hatred and fear. It is unhealthy, both mentally and physically, for Jews as well as Germans, and it is destructive to the community as a whole. For these heartfelt reasons and for these motives of public principle, I refrained from prosecuting the persons who threatened me, no doubt sincerely, with murder and mayhem. Instead, I made the recorded hate calls available to the police who then, apparently, played the tape-recorded calls to various functionaries of several Jewish groups. These persons disclaimed any knowledge of the hate callers, but said they would look into the matter. I believe that it is no mere coincidence that the hate calls ceased entirely after this meeting. Please forgive me in advance for indicating the likely connection between the Jewish "representatives" and the hate callers, for I have no wish to insult your intelligence. It is simple logic that those who could so swiftly stop such frequent and incessant hate calls must have known who the callers were, and since the callers stopped, must have been subordinate to the Jewish representatives contacted by the police. Is it therefore illogical to hypothesize that the hate callers may have acted with the approval of the representatives in question? I leave it for you to decide. I do not confide these suspicions to you out of malice and least of all out of a desire to criticize the Jewish community through the actions of its chosen representatives who are no doubt subject to the human failings which afflict all of us. I merely wish to let you know how these representatives, whose actions are deemed to reflect the wishes and sentiments of the Jewish community, by many non-Jews, appear through the exercise of their considerable public influence and in the manner in which they exercise such influence. I ask you, sincerely, if this is the image which you, as a thinking and conscientious member of the community desire on behalf of your fellow ethnic community members. It is certainly not the image I would desire for leaders of the German community, and I would be the first German to denounce and to repudiate such goon squad tactics if they had been done on behalf of the German community.

Certain of these Jewish community representatives approached Ontario Attorney General Roy McMurthry in order to lay charges against me for the distribution of hate literature, such being the character of their misunderstandings. Naturally, I was not disseminating hate, regardless of the diatribes of the speakers in Allen Gardens, and the Attorney General was perfectly aware of this fact, so these self-same "representatives" of the Jewish community took their groundless complaints to the Minister in Charge of Canada Post in order to deprive me of my inalienable human rights to communicate ideas via the mails-contrary to the United Nations' Declaration on Human Rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights-in order to censor the information which I was making available to Jews and Gentiles alike. I can tell you bluntly that this action on the part of supposedly well-educated, liberal, democratic and freedom-loving Jewish representatives shocked me to the core, for the means they employed to stop me from communicating my thoughts to others was typical of fascist and/or communist dictatorships, in that they chose to destroy the bearer of the idea, instead of refuting the idea in open, democratic debate, as I have long invited them to do. Being, like yourself, a lover of freedom and democracy, I protested the prohibitory ruling of Canada Post, whereupon I came up against Ms. Sabina Citron of the Canadian Holocaust Remembrance Association, Mr. Ben Kayfetz of the Canadian Jewish Congress and their attorneys, Messrs. Lawrence Greenspon and Sidney Moscoe, all of whom at one time or another have spoken out in favor of human rights and all of whom were present for the explicit purpose of depriving me of my human rights! The irony of their radically altered positions was not lost upon the press representatives, the members of the Postal Review Board which was chaired by the well-known lawyer, Mr. Robert Chevrier, Q.C., nor equally upon my defending attorneys of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association who protested the illegality of the entire proceedings in terms of Canada's Charter of Rights. All those who believed in freedom of expression were further disappointed by participation in these proceedings of the noted member of the Jewish community and representative of the Canadian Jewish Congress and B'nai Brith, Mr. Ben Kayfetz, who appeared to testify against me, bearing a file of information which appeared intended to link me with certain anti-Jewish hate groups.

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