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Comments (0)Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel was released from a German prison after serving a five-year sentence.
Zundel, 69, who was released Monday from a prison in Mannheim, was found guilty in 2007 of inciting hatred against Jews and systematically denying the Nazi genocide against the Jews—in 14 specific instances—on his Web site and in a newsletter. His five-year sentence included two years in jail following his deportation from Canada in 2005. The trial began in November 2006.
Zundel received the maximum sentence, according to reports.
Born in Germany, Zundel left the country in 1958 allegedly to avoid military service. Considered among the most active Holocaust deniers in the world, he was arrested in Canada in February 2003.
Zundel was among the first right-wing extremists to use the Internet to spread hate material. Canada expelled him after courts there found his Web site to be unconstitutional. He was one of several Holocaust deniers deported to Germany at about that time.
During his trial in Mannheim, Zundel’s attorney, Sylvia Stolz, denied the Holocaust herself and in 2008 was sentenced to three years, eight months in jail.
Meanwhile, the German news agency DDP reported that the sentence of longtime Austrian Holocaust denier Gerd Honsik was reduced to four years from five.
A Vienna court ruled Monday that the original sentence that was passed last April was too high.
Honsik had been convicted of similar charges in 1992 but fled to Spain, where he continued disseminating his Holocaust denial theories in print. He was arrested there in 2007 and sent back to Austria to face further charges.
Honsik repeatedly has questioned the existence of gas chambers.
Toronto Student Investigated for Hate Crimes
A hate crimes investigation has been launched against a Toronto college student accused of running a Web site that calls Jews “the scum of the earth” and “mass murderers.”
The Hate Crimes/Extremism Investigative Team, comprised of representatives of 13 Ontario municipal police forces, and the Ontario Provincial Police are investigating the Web postings of Salman Hossein, who attends York University.
The development comes months after officials in Ontario decided not to charge Hossain with hate crimes, partly because he was undergoing rehabilitation, the National Post newspaper reported Wednesday.
Now posting at the Arizona-based Web site filthyjewishterrorists.com, Hossain has written that Jews were “seriously attempting another 9-11 on Canadian soil,” and that if such an attack was carried out and blamed on “innocent Muslims, then it is obvious that a genocide should be perpetrated against the Jewish populations of North America and Europe.” His site also calls Jews “diseased and filthy” and “psychotic.”
Canada’s hate crimes law prohibits supporting or promoting genocide, as well as the communication of statements—other than in private conversation—that willfully promote hatred against an identifiable group.
In an e-mail exchange with a National Post reporter, Hossain was unapologetic, saying “it’s not my fault you people rape babies, then cry foul when someone exposes it.”
Last year the hate crimes unit concluded a lengthy investigation into Hossain’s writings and brought the case to Ontario’s attorney general, who decided not to press criminal charges because he said Hossain had removed the postings in question, had refrained from similar conduct for more than a year and was undergoing rehabilitation.
Jose Mindlin, Jewish Bibliophile, Dies in Brazil
Jose Mindlin, a Jewish bibliophile who owned the largest private library in Latin America, has died.
Mindlin died Sunday in Brazil. He was 95.
He owned more than 38,000 books and was a member of the prestigious Brazilian Academy of Letters. In 2006, Mindlin donated about half of his collection to the University of Sao Paulo, mostly on topics related to Brazilian studies.
A building on the university’s campus will be built specifically to maintain the massive library, and will be named after the Guita and Jose Mindlin Foundation.
After retiring from the business world, Mindlin was able to dedicate his time to a passion he had since he was 13 years old: collecting and preserving rare books. The first rare edition in his collection was “Discours sur l’Histoire Universelle,” by Jacques-Benigne Bossuet, published in 1740.
Mindlin, the son of Ukrainian parents, had occupied several public positions in the cultural field in Sao Paulo, including secretary of culture.
“He was a giant of the Brazilian culture,” Sao Paulo Mayor Gilbero Kassab said. “His legacy is the library he left, the result of a life dedicated to the books. Today it’s an asset of all Brazilians.”
Henry Sobel, emeritus rabbi of Latin America’s largest Jewish congregation, the 2,000-family Congregacao Israelita Paulista, said that Mindlin’s life was a book itself.
“He was a righteous man who could see ethics in politics and culture,” Sobel said. “I felt so little when I was in his library. His greatest book was called Jose Mindlin.”