Pro-Nazi Publisher Gets New Trial

The Canadian Supreme Court has granted a new trial to pro-Nazi publisher Ernst Zundel, whose claims that there was no Holocaust against the Jews in World War II got him convicted of publishing damaging falsehoods.

Zundel, a native of Germany who emigrated to Canada at age 18 but remains a West German citizen, immediately dared Ontario province to try him again, and the province said Friday that it would.

“If they’re going to go through with it, I think they’re going to get a licking, and we’re going to end World War II in the city of Toronto,” Zundel told reporters.

In 1985, a Toronto jury convicted Zundel, 47, of publishing material he knew was false and which was likely to damage social and racial tolerance in Canada. His pamphlet, “Did Six Million Really Die?,” asserted that the Holocaust was a hoax and that the killing of Jews was vastly exaggerated.

He received a suspended sentence of 15 months in jail and was ordered to say nothing more about the Holocaust. A deportation order against him was suspended, pending his appeal.

In January, the Ontario Court of Appeal overturned Zundel’s conviction on the grounds that the trial judge should not have curtailed his right to challenge jurors and should not have admitted prosecution evidence about Nazi atrocities.