I, REBECCA RACHELLE GUTTMAN of 802 1/2 E. Hollywood Street, Tampa, FL 33604, U.S.A, WILL SAY as follows:-
1.I am employed by The American Jewish Committee (“AJC”), Southwest Florida Chapter as Executive Assistant for West Coast Florida Chapter. I have worked for the AJC for one year. My responsibilities include: maintaining multiple databases, planning and organising lectures and other events, working with other organisations in the community and various administrative duties.
2.The AJC was founded in 1906 to ensure the protection of the rights and freedoms of Jews world-wide. The AJC endeavours to achieve this in the following ways: by combating extremism and discrimination, by advancing and protecting civil rights; by defending religious freedom; by strengthening mutual understanding among diverse religious, racial and ethnic groups; and by advocating for public policy issues of significance to the Jewish community and to society at large. As part of its aim to inform and protect the Jewish community, the AJC monitors far right extremist activity.
3.On or around mid July 1998, the AJC, Southwest Florida Chapter, received a flier from Ken Stern, who works at the Central Office of the AJC in New York City ,advertising a lecture to be given by Mr Irving on 25 July 1998 at the Best Western Hotel, 820 E Busch Boulevard, Tampa, Florida, U.S.A. This flier is attached to this statement at Appendix page 1. This flier described the Defendant as the “World Famous British Historian Banned For Publishing Politically Incorrect Views About The Holocaust”. Although the flier made no mention of the National Alliance, the contact telephone number given was the number listed for the local office of the National Alliance (when I telephoned this number on 30 July 1998, the recorded message stated that the number was a “temporary number for the local Tampa unit”)
4.The National Alliance is a far right, racist and anti-Semitic organisation. It disseminates its views through a variety of media; radio, pamphlets, posters, mailshots, the Internet, meetings and lectures. At Appendix pages 2-9, is a NA publication entitled “What Is the National Alliance?”. I acquired this booklet at the meeting on 25 July.
5.At page 3 the title reads “Building a New White World”. The pamphlet sets out in detail the ideology of the National Alliance and the means by which it intends to achieve its goals. At page 4, in a subsection headed “White Living Space”, the text reads
” After the sickness of “multiculturalism”, which is destroying America, Britain, and every other Aryan nation in which it is being promoted, has been swept away, we must again have a racially clean area of the earth for the further development of our people. We must have White schools, White residential neighbourhoods and recreational areas, White workplaces, White farms and countryside. We must have no non-Whites in our living space, and we must have open space around us for expansion. We will do whatever is necessary to achieve this White living space and to keep it White……What we must have…is a thorough rooting out of Semitic and other non-Aryan values and customs everywhere”.
The pamphlet goes on to specify that:
“this means a society in which young men and women gather to revel with traditional European folk music…..It means pop music without Barry Manilow and art galleries without Marc Chagall. It means films in which the appearance of any non-White face on the screen is a sure sign that what’s being shown is either archival newsreel footage or a historical drama about the bad, old days”.
6.The text identifies the “enemy” of the National Alliance:
“With the growth of mass democracy (the abolition of poll taxes and other qualifications for voters, the enfranchisement of women and of non-Whites), the rise in the influence of the mass media on public opinion, and the insinuation of the Jews into a position of control over the media, the U.S. government was gradually transformed into the malignant monster it is today: the single most dangerous and destructive enemy our race has ever known”.
The National Alliance offers an alternative:
“The fact is that we need a strong, centralised government spanning several continents to co-ordinate many important tasks during the first few decades of a White world: the racial cleansing of the land, the rooting out of racially destructive institutions”.
7.At page 5, the National Alliance outlines its plan for a new education system. It sets out the new system that should be adopted and refers to the techniques which “enjoyed an all-too-brief revival earlier this century in National Socialist Germany”. The National Alliance believes that; “all we can hope to salvage [in the realisation of their objective] from even the racially White elements [of urban populations] is a selected minority, while the majority perishes in the chaos preceding the final cleansing…..Unfortunately….White governments everywhere are terminally corrupt, led by collaborators with the Jews” (page 6).
8.I would like to draw attention to the cartoon at page 6. In the picture entitled “NOW”, a representative of the National Alliance shouts, from a basic podium, to a small group, while workers build a structure around him. On the other side, a man, flanked by a flag with a dollar sign and the “stars and stripes” flag of the USA, speaks through a megaphone. This man is identified as being Jewish by the skullcap he is wearing and by the Star of David, which appears on the megaphone. He talks from a high stone structure to a crowd. Below this, the two speakers are represented “LATER”: the National Alliance emblem fronts a brick structure from which the National Alliance member speaks into a microphone. The other speaker stands on a crumbling podium, shaking his fist, while his crowd change allegiance.
9.The National Alliance repeatedly blames the “Jewish media” and the government for what they see as the “morally”, “ideologically” and “degraded” state of society: “White governments everywhere are terminally corrupt, led by collaborators with the Jews” (page 6). “The government and the Jewish media will continue to have their hard core of support – Jews, feminists, some homosexuals, some Christians, the radical-liberal New World Order enthusiasts, most of the state and Federal bureaucrats, and others on government or media payrolls”(page 7). At page 8 under the title “HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL ALLIANCE”, a brief account of National Alliance activity to date is given. Described are street demonstrations, organised by the National Alliance, where placards and banners were carried “denouncing not only the communists, Jews, and other avowed enemies of White America but also the government which tolerated and even encouraged them”.
10.The “Eligibility” requirements of the National Alliance are “Any White person (a non-Jewish person of wholly European ancestry) of good character and at least 18 years of age who accepts as his own the goals of the National Alliance and who is willing to support the program described herein”. It continues “No homosexual or bisexual person….no person with a non-White spouse or a non-White dependent…may be a member” (page 9)
11.I attended the NA event, at which Mr Irving spoke, on 25 July 1998 and made a contemporaneous note of what and whom I saw and heard (Appendix page 10). I have refreshed my memory from the note and am able to give a detailed account of my experience.
12.When I entered the room where the event was being held, members of the National Alliance greeted me and collected my admission fee, ($10 per person or $5 with a student ID card). Members of the National Alliance were identifiable by their neon stickers bearing the National Alliance logo. (The cartoon mentioned above, which appears at Appendix page 6, includes a drawing of the logo). Before I was allowed into the room, a National Alliance member ran a metal detector across my body and asked if I had any weapons on me.
13.There were approximately 70 people in attendance. Around 63 of these were male. The age of those gathered varied from 18 to 70 years old. There was no one there whom I recognised.
14.Inside the room there was a table set up with Mr Irving’s books and copies of his latest newsletter. Across the room there was a table set up for the National Alliance with books, fliers and cassette tapes. I picked up a selection of the material on offer. This material is at Appendix pages 11 to 106. This material comprises; a Catalogue number 17 of National Vanguard Books (with supplement) (pages 11-85), a flier advertising Mr Irving’s books (page 86), a hand written photocopied flier advertising Mr Irving’s next lecture (page 87) and a publication entitled “David Irving’s Action Report”, dated July 20, 1998 (pages 88-106).
15.The first of these items, the National Vanguard Books catalogue, details recommended books and other publications that are intended to inform its supporters and readers about, amongst other subjects, their “Aryan ancestors” , “The Enemy” and “The Solution: What is to be done now” (page13). There is no effort to conceal the racist, anti-Semitic stance of National Vanguard Books. At page 13, under the subtitle “The Enemy”, the text reads: “Communism is not the only racially destructive movement the Jews have been behind; feminism (for Gentiles) is another….The destructive role of the Jews in psychology and psychiatry becomes apparent in The Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire“. The text continues and states that it is aware of “The role of Zionism in the Jewish drive to destroy America”.
16.Under the sub-heading “The Second World War” National Vanguard Books recommends Mr Irving’s book Churchill’s War. Underneath the text reads:
“Finally, there is the question of who the “good guys” and the “bad guys” were: who were the people fighting for the White race, and who were fighting against its interests; who showed a certain degree of decency and humanity in the conduct and humanity in the conduct of the war, and who were the savages? The very disturbing answers will be found in Dachau: Hour of the Avenger, Doenitz at Nuremberg, Advance to Barbarism, German Expellees, The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau: 1939-1945, and Gruesome Harvest” (page27).
17.There follows the catalogue of books under varied headings including; “European Prehistory, Archaeology, and Folkways”, “American History”, “Communism, Zionism, Feminism and the Jews”, “National Socialist Revolution”, ” Books for Children and Young People”, “Race: Science and Sociology” and “Survival and Self-defence”. Under the section entitled: “Second World War”, the publication recommends Mr Irving’s book Churchill’s War: “The clichés about good old “Winnie” and “Ike” will ring hollow after David Irving’s Churchill’s War“. I would also like to draw attention to the comments which appear beneath Mr Irving’s books; Churchill’s War and Hitler’s War, at page ….. In addition, in order to complete a picture of the views and ideology espoused by National Vanguard Books, I would like to highlight the following pages: 47-51 (an article entitled “The Alien Grip on Our News and Entertainment Media Must be Broken”), 54-55 (cataloguing books on explosives, guerrilla warfare, incendiaries and boobytraps), 65 (video tapes) and 79 (“About the National Alliance: A Brief Summary”).
18.At the meeting, the podium, which was situated at the end of the room, was decorated with a National Alliance flag. A National Alliance member took the podium and told everyone to feel free to peruse the literature set up at the National Alliance table. This member then introduced Mr Irving.
19.Mr Irving made his speech, which lasted for about an hour. He spoke on a wide variety of topics, one of which was the Holocaust. Mr Irving referred to those who call him a “Holocaust Denier” as “Holocaust Liars”. He spoke of the countries from which he is banned, and seemed to regard each ban as a victory. He claimed that the countries involved were scared of the “truth”, that is, the “truth” that there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz and other lies of the Holocaust deniers.
20.After the speech there was a question and answer session. Most of the questions were about World War II. At the end of the talk the audience applauded Mr Irving.
21.Several members of the National Alliance were acting as security for the event. They were constantly scanning the audience from four different locations around the room. Two were situated behind Mr Irving and two stood on either side of the audience, at the half mark of the room. There were also several National Alliance members standing by the doors. It was not clear in what capacity they were standing there. I stayed for the duration of the meeting, which lasted about one and a half hours.
22.The contents of this statement are true to the best of my knowledge and belief.
Dated
……………………………..
Rebecca Guttman