Major secret meeting of Holocaust deniers convenes in heart of London
Event held under a veil of secrecy at London's Grosvenor Hotel.
By JPOST.COM STAFFHolocaust survivors at Auschwitz.(photo credit: REUTERS)
A large international conference of Holocaust deniers recently took place in the heart of London, Britain's Daily Mail reported on Saturday."This is the biggest and most significant meeting of Holocaust deniers that Britain has ever seen. It is a very worrying development," the paper quoted Gerry Gable, an expert on the extreme Right who aided the news outlet's undercover investigation of the event, as saying. The event was held under a veil of secrecy at London's Grosvenor Hotel in a room draped with the Union Flag. A spokesman for the hotel said the room booking was made online and hotel staff were unaware of the nature of the meeting, according to the Daily Mail. Nazi Pedro Varela, 57, was described by the paper as the star speaker of the event. According to the report, Varela was arrested in Austria in 1992 for praising Hitler, and on the dictator's centenary he declared to a supportive crowd in Madrid that, "There were never any gas chambers in Auschwitz.""National Socialism offered a lot of solutions that were beneficial then and could be beneficial to modern-day society," the Mail quoted him as saying at the conference.The paper also quoted him as referring to mixed-race children as "blackos" and describing gay parents as "making a monster family."On Jews, Varela said: "They say Jews have the gold in the world and the power in the press and they are going to rule the world… So, do we have to be realistic, be similar to the officer of the general staff of an army... What are the enemy’s faults? We should also be smart and clever, as are the children of darkness... Sometimes we are not that smart."The paper reported that Varela appeared to call for a boycott of Jewish shops and businesses, saying: "In the Middle Ages, the Jews had all the gold in the world but they were living in the ghettos. They still have the gold of the world and are the masters of it...But now the gold is important for us. It is like a sword. If we say, OK fine, I have no more interest in your gold and your money and your shops and your consuming, the wax sword is going to melt."The investigation of the event also quoted extensively from Mark Weber's speech, who the paper described as "America’s leading peddler of Holocaust denial and revisionist theories." The report included the following statement that Weber wrote in 1989: "The Holocaust is a religion. Its underpinnings in the realm of historical fact are non-existent – no Hitler order, no plan, no budget, no gas chambers, no autopsies of gassed victims, no bones, no ashes, no skulls, no nothing."
His speech at the London conference under the title ‘The Challenge of Jewish-Zionist Power’ included the following statements, the Mail reported: "The Jewish connection covers all areas and reaches every level. Most Americans may not even sense this gigantic effort, but there is scarcely a Jew who is not touched by its tentacles.""In reality, the Jewish hold on American life is far more dangerous. Why? Jews in America have a strong loyalty to a foreign country – Israel.""Secondly, because of the distrustful and sometimes adversarial way in which Jews view the rest of us. This “chosen people” mindset, this “Us vs Them” attitude, is anchored in centuries of Jewish history and heritage."Weber quoted from a rabbi’s essay about European anti-Semitism with the line, "Hatred lingers in the air into which the ashes rose from the crematoria’, which garnered applause "along with sneering laughs," according to the report.With his audience "clapping appreciatively", Weber said: "As long as the power of the very powerful Jewish lobby remains entrenched, there will be no end to the systematic Jewish distortion of history and current affairs… No task is more important or pressing than to identify, counter and break this power.""Today, we are engaged in a great global struggle which pits a self-assured and diabolical power which feels ordained to rule over others on the one side, and all other nations, indeed humanity itself, on the other," he added.On Saturday the Mail said there were calls from Jewish community leaders for police to investigate the group for race hate crimes.‘The material from this white supremacist group makes ugly reading,’ said barrister Jonathan Arkush, vice-president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews.‘On the face of it, their proceedings should be investigated to ascertain whether criminal offenses have been committed, including incitement to racial hatred.
