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The pamphlets comparing Jews to the devil resulted in New Zealand’s only prosecution for hate speech, but it is a story most unknown. Torika Tokalau reports.
Expensive houses and quiet tree-lined streets: Auckland’s Remuera is a perfect slice of suburbs, but it was also the location of New Zealand’s first and only prosecuted hate speech incident.
In the late 1970s, members of the Jewish community were attacked in a brochure, condemning their faith and comparing them to the devil.
Sociologist and professor Dr. Paul Spoonley, who researches racism in New Zealand, believes that this was the moment when Kiwis first realized that neo-Nazi groups existed in this country.
Holocaust survivor Bob Narev, 84, remembers it quite clearly.
In 1977, 30 years after moving to New Zealand from Switzerland, Narev was living on the fringes of Remuera with his wife, Freida, also a Holocaust survivor.
Chris McKeen / Stuff
Bob Narev, a German-born Holocaust survivor, was living on the outskirts of Remuera in 1977 when the brochures were distributed.
The National Socialist White People’s Party of New Zealand, founded by Durward Colin King-Ansell, printed and distributed 9,000 brochures to Remuera’s mailboxes sometime in the first four months of the year.
Narev did not receive a brochure in his mailbox and has never seen one, but the fear and alarm they caused was felt throughout the Jewish community.
Printed on the brochure were two images: Jesus Christ and Adolf Hitler.
In the center, there was a biblical quote from St. John 8:44, an alleged condemnation of the Jews by Jesus.
Fairfax Archives Auckland / Stuff
The leader of the National Socialist White People’s Party of New Zealand, Durward Colin King-Ansell, was fined $ 400 for his hate speech against Jews in Remuera.
The excerpt reads: “Jesus said to the Jews: ‘You are of your father the devil, and you will do your father’s wishes. He was murderous from the beginning and was not based on the truth because there is no truth in him. When he speaks, he talks about his own, because he is a liar and the father of lies. ‘
The brochure also included a quote from Hitler’s political manifesto, My fight, which said: “… defending myself against the Jews, I am fighting for the Lord’s work.”
The phrases “National Socialist Movement” and “By Race and Nation” were also included.
Chris McKeen / Stuff
Professor Paul Spoonley says the booklets were intended to target and antagonize Jews, specifically in Remuera.
On the other side was a photo of a dozen Nazis wearing helmets and swastika armbands, and a message urging interested people to support the anti-Jewish movement.
“Study our alternative! Help build a new order! Our fight is your fight! Join us! Write today! “
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Narev, who survived the Theresienstadt concentration camp in Czechoslovakia when he was just 6 years old, remembers worrying about what would result from the brochure’s fall.
He said it was the first time he had experienced anything anti-Semitic in New Zealand.
“I was aware of King-Ansell and his activities and what his attitude was towards the Jewish people and the Holocaust, and I was not entirely surprised that he took this step.
Chris McKeen / Stuff
Kiwi Jews have experienced a spectrum of hate crimes, including the 1990 attack in Wellington when four children in a Jewish school were stabbed by a woman shouting anti-Semitic slogans.
“It was a real concern for both me and my wife, the ‘Where is this going to lead?’ in view of our past experiences. “
Two Jewish recipients of the leaflets, Nina Alice Anna Blumenfeld and Geoffrey Hugh Klippel, filed a complaint with the race relations conciliator’s office and the police were asked to investigate.
King-Ansell and party member Martin Alfred Hughes were eventually indicted under section 25 of the Race Relations Act of 1971, with the intent of inciting ill will against Jews because of their ethnic origins.
Police found a printing press and relevant plates at King-Ansell’s home, and found him solely responsible for the numbered PO Box on the brochure.
King-Ansell was found guilty and received a three-month prison sentence in Auckland Magistrates Court on October 20, 1977.
A June 27, 1978 appeal to the Supreme Court failed after the judge upheld the conviction and replaced his jail sentence with a $ 400 fine.
He lost another appeal to the Court of Appeal in July 1979.
Supplied
Auckland Star news clipping of King-Ansell’s appeal against his Supreme Court conviction in 1978.
Hughes was sentenced to one month in prison.
Spoonley, a sociologist at Massey University, said the brochures, which were also modified and sent to the homes of Pacific Islanders in Ponsonby, were horrible for two reasons.
“We [New Zealanders] He didn’t accept that we had the same kind of extreme white supremacists and neo-Nazi politics as everyone else. So that was really a confrontation, ”he said.
Central City Library / Supplied
Martin Alfred Hughes is one of only two people in New Zealand convicted under the incitement section of the Race Relations Act.
“The second is the direct type of racism. There is nothing polite about any of these, these are really racism to your face. And so both the Jews and Pasifika were attacked in very offensive ways. “
The intention of the pamphlets, he says, was to target and antagonize the Jews, specifically in Remuera.
“There have never been many Jews living in any city in New Zealand, but there were obviously enough Jews to receive this brochure in their mailbox.”
The prosecution of the men was the first and only recorded for hate speech in New Zealand.
Dr David Cumin, an executive member of the New Zealand Jewish Council, says the 1977 event was harrowing for members of the Jewish community, but there have been far worse attacks since then.
New Zealand Jews have experienced a spectrum of hate crimes, including the 1990 attack in Wellington when four children at a Jewish school were stabbed by a woman shouting anti-Semitic slogans.
Anti-Semitic comments and posts on social media have also increased, he says.
The Jewish Community Security Group noted a record of anti-Semitic incidents in 2020. Most were abusive behavior, but there was also vandalism and damage done to synagogues and the desecration of Jewish graves.
A 2020 report revealed that some New Zealand Jews have felt the need to hide their identities in public, and others have avoided community events because they feel vulnerable doing so.
“I don’t think what Colin-Ansell did would meet the current threshold for prosecution,” Cumin says.
“It is worrying what he sent through the mailboxes, but now there are people who say the same and worse things on social networks.”
Last December, the government agreed in principle to implement 44 recommendations of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the attacks on the Christchurch mosque in 2019.
This included the need to ensure that legislation related to hate speech and crime, including that relating to racial or religious discord, is fit for purpose.
The changes are expected to be made after consultation with community groups and parties throughout Parliament.
