NSW police have raided a property outside Bathurst belonging to David Pollard, the owner of neo-Nazi online store Noble Front. In February, Pollard was the * attraction on Seven News in Sydney; Seven also accompanied police on the raid this morning (June 10, video). Armed with a search warrant for ‘racist propaganda’, police have apparently confiscated a range of materials, including computers. As a result, presumably — and assuming that this information was not available to them previously — they will now have in their possession details of anyone who’s ordered merchandise from Pollard in the past. Potential charges against Pollard would also presumably be brought under the terms of the (NSW) Anti Discrimination Act (1977).
Currently, while the Noble Front site catalogue is down, and has been for some months, Noble Front merchandise is available for sale at OZtion.com.au. Items include an SS and White Power patch; a Nazi Youth and SS flag; and — my personal favourite — the Deaths Head CD ‘Feast of the Jackal’.
OZtion was founded by Philip Druce and Kelvin Yip in Melbourne in 2005. Together they identified the requirement for OZtion from working in the online industry and began to build a team to offer Australians an Australian online auction site. OZtion’s team now includes professionals in online trading, web site development, database systems, internet security and fraud prevention. It’s been heaps of fun and challenging building and running OZtion.
As noted previously, Deaths Head is a local Melbourne band, and closely associated with both Blood & Honour and the Hammerskins, international neo-Nazi networks. Vocalist Jesse maintains a channel on YouTube which features a number of Deaths Head videos, as well as two very brief cartoons featuring the decapitation and shooting of ‘Sheky’ the Jew. Deaths Head is also notable for having provided local oi! band Bulldog Spirit with a drummer, Joel. Doug, the vocalist for Bulldog Spirit, is a big fan of mine, and it was in this spirit that he published what he claimed (erroneously) to be my work address on an online forum frequented by boneheads.
On the one hand, the material advertising the event (see above) — as well as a banner linking the site to the Starlight Foundation homepage — has disappeared from the Bulldog Spirit myspace page; on the other hand, it remains on that of The Beefeaters, and the Foundation itself has not, as far as I’m aware, made any kind of public statement regarding the event. Certainly, it was well-publicised that a gig raising funds for the Starlight Foundation was to take place, and there’s been no hint that it wasn’t properly authorised. The circumstances surrounding the gig are slightly unusual, however, as normally those seeking to raise funds for charitable institutions such as Starlight obtain authorisation for such activities; thus, either permission was not given, or it was later withdrawn. The unauthorised use of charitable logos to raise funds is unlawful under the Fundraising Appeals Act, and it’s difficult — in fact, virtually impossible — to believe that the Foundation would place itself in such a position merely in order to help rehabilitate the image of a pub that for the last ten years has hosted neo-Nazi events. Certainly, the disgusting pigs whom the proprietor has in the past allowed use of the venue to raise funds and to promote neo-Nazi ideology would much rather see children who in their opinion have the wrong skin colour either deported or, in the manner of their political ancestors, exterminated.
Which fact brings me to the point: what’s all the fuss about anyways? At the risk of being accused of wearing a black armband, perhaps an historical detour would be appropriate at this juncture. (Please note that sensitive young conservatives who happen to be fans of punk and ska music may like to exit the room at this point.)
Children were especially vulnerable in the era of the Holocaust. The Nazis advocated killing children of “unwanted” or “dangerous” groups in accordance with their ideological views, either as part of the “racial struggle” or as a measure of preventative security. The Germans and their collaborators killed children both for these ideological reasons and in retaliation for real or alleged partisan attacks.
The Germans and their collaborators killed as many as 1.5 million children, including over a million Jewish children and tens of thousands of Romani (Gypsy) children, German children with physical and mental disabilities living in institutions, Polish children, and children residing in the occupied Soviet Union. The chances for survival for Jewish and some non-Jewish adolescents (13-18 years old) were greater, as they could be deployed at forced labor.
The fate of Jewish and non-Jewish children can be categorized in the following way: 1) children killed when they arrived in killing centers; 2) children killed immediately after birth or in institutions; 3) children born in ghettos and camps who survived because prisoners hid them; 4) children, usually over age 12, who were used as laborers and as subjects of medical experiments; and 5) those children killed during reprisal operations or so-called anti-partisan operations.
In the ghettos, Jewish children died from starvation and exposure as well as lack of adequate clothing and shelter. The German authorities were indifferent to this mass death because they considered most of the younger ghetto children to be unproductive and hence “useless eaters.” Because children were generally too young to be deployed at forced labor, German authorities generally selected them, along with the elderly, ill, and disabled, for the first deportations to killing centers, or as the first victims led to mass graves to be shot.
Upon arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau and other killing centers, the camp authorities sent the majority of children directly to the gas chambers. SS and police forces in German-occupied Poland and the occupied Soviet Union shot thousands of children at the edge of mass graves. Sometimes the selection of children to fill the first transports to the killing centers or to provide the first victims of shooting operations resulted from the agonizing and controversial decisions of Jewish council (Judenrat) chairmen. The decision by the Judenrat in Lodz in September 1942 to deport children to the Chelmno killing center was an example of the tragic choices made by adults when faced with German demands. Janusz Korczak, director of an orphanage in the Warsaw ghetto, however, refused to abandon the children under his care when they were selected for deportation. He accompanied them on the transport to the Treblinka killing center and into the gas chambers, sharing their fate.
Non-Jewish children from certain targeted groups were not spared. Examples include Romani (Gypsy) children killed in Auschwitz concentration camp; 5,000 to 7,000 children killed as victims of the “euthanasia” program; children murdered in reprisals, including most of the children of Lidice; and children in villages in the occupied Soviet Union who were killed with their parents.
The German authorities also incarcerated a number of children in concentration camps and transit camps. SS physicians and medical researchers used a number of children, including twins, in concentration camps for medical experiments that often resulted in the deaths of the children. Concentration camp authorities deployed adolescents, particularly Jewish adolescents, at forced labor in the concentration camps, where many died because of conditions. The German authorities held other children under appalling conditions in transit camps, such as the case of Anne Frank and her sister in Bergen-Belsen, and non-Jewish orphaned children whose parents the German military and police units had killed in so-called anti-partisan operations. Some of these orphans were held temporarily in the Lublin/Majdanek concentration camp and other detention camps.
In their “search to retrieve ‘Aryan blood,’” SS race experts ordered hundreds of children in occupied Poland and the occupied Soviet Union to be kidnapped and transferred to the Reich to be adopted by racially suitable German families. Although the basis for these decisions was “race-scientific,” often blond hair, blue eyes, or fair skin was sufficient to merit the “opportunity” to be “Germanized.” On the other hand, female Poles and Soviet civilians who had been deported to Germany for forced labor and who had had sexual relations with a German man — often under duress — resulting in pregnancy were forced to have abortions or to bear their children under conditions that would ensure the infant’s death, if the “race experts” determined that the child would have insufficient German blood.
In spite of their acute vulnerability, many children discovered ways to survive. Children smuggled food and medicines into the ghettos, after smuggling personal possessions to trade for them out of the ghettos. Children in youth movements later participated in underground resistance activities. Many children escaped with parents or other relatives — and sometimes on their own — to family camps run by Jewish partisans.
Between 1938 and 1940, the Kindertransport (Children’s Transport) was the informal name of a rescue effort which brought thousands of refugee Jewish children (without their parents) to safety in Great Britain from Nazi Germany and German-occupied territories. Some non-Jews hid Jewish children and sometimes, as in the case of Anne Frank, hid other family members as well. In France, almost the entire Protestant population of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, as well as many Catholic priests, nuns, and lay Catholics, hid Jewish children in the town from 1942 to 1944. In Italy and Belgium, many children survived in hiding.
After the surrender of Nazi Germany, ending World War II, refugees and displaced persons searched throughout Europe for missing children. Thousands of orphaned children were in displaced persons camps. Many surviving Jewish children fled eastern Europe as part of the mass exodus (Brihah) to the western zones of occupied Germany, en route to the Yishuv (the Jewish settlement in Palestine). Through Youth Aliyah (Youth Immigration), thousands migrated to the Yishuv, and then to the state of Israel after its establishment in 1948.
The photo below is of some of the Nazi concentration camp guards at Auschwitz, one of several such photos unearthed only last year:
In which context, it may be worth recalling the reaction of a local teenage fascist (and self-proclaimed ‘national anarchist’) at the time of their discovery, as recorded (and since deleted) on the white supremacist website Stormfront:
Today, 05:35 AM
NoCrusties
Australian Nationalist
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Australia
Posts: 460
Re: New photos of Nazis having fun in the sun
They are celebrating the girls graduation from Jewish strangulation school?
Haha, jokes, haha!
Regards
NoCrusties.
This is the reaction of a local Melbourne teenager to genocide; a teenager belonging to a Sydney-based political formation run by a German-born neo-Nazi militant named Welf Herfurth, a man on record as denying the Holocaust, and a man also present — alongside other luminaries from the local neo-Nazi and ’skinhead’ milieus — at the 2006 ISD memorial gig…
Of course, on the other hand, according to Jack of The Beefeaters, The Birmy — until recently the venue for both the ISD memorial gigs and numerous other gatherings and fund-raising initiatives by local neo-Nazis — is “the only venue in Melbourne that truly supports local bands, offer[s] free practice space and refuses to take any percentage of the door charge from gigs”. (By the same token, it should also be remembered that, by all accounts, Hitler was quite fond of Blondi, a German Shepherd — a breed renowned for their loyalty and obedience.) Common sense suggests that a boycott of The Birmy, and any attempt to promote it, is therefore equivalent to the activities of the Nazi regime itself. In fact, if one compares the activities of contemporary neo-Nazis such as the Hammerskins with the publication of material relaying to a boycott of a pub which has hosted their activities for the better part of a decade, the similarity between the two becomes even clearer.
Well, that’s apparently the argument of apologists for The Birmy anyway. The Hammerskins, on the other hand, aren’t noted for their sensitivity to criticism.
Doin’ It For The Kids : Hammerskins Style!
Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun
Named for the stirring use of hammers as fascist symbols in the film The Wall (1982), it remains unknown if the bright spark who thought of the name Hammerskins was a fan of Pink Floyd’s earlier, psychedelic rock; certainly, Bob Geldof’s role as “A troubled rock star [who] descends into madness in the midst of his physical and social isolation from everyone” appears to be reflected in his eventual belief that charity solves poverty. In any case, established in 1987, it wasn’t very long before the Hammerskins came to national prominence in their natural home, the United States, when, a year later, five members of the original ‘Confederate’ Hammerskins in Dallas — Christopher Greer, 23, John Jordan, 17, Michael Lawrence, 20, Sean Tarrant, 18 and Daniel Wood, 18 — “chased and attacked minorities who attempted to enter Robert E. Lee Park in downtown Dallas. The five were apparently inspired by a racist rally they attended in Tulsa that June where Tom Metzger, leader of White Aryan Resistance (WAR) spoke. When they were arrested, the defendants had baseball bats and broken pieces of concrete, which they apparently intended to use to recreate the Kristallnacht to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the attacks on Jewish stores and homes that took place on November 9, 1938 in Nazi Germany”. The five were sentenced for the crime in April, 1990.
Since that time, Hammerskins have engaged in many violent assaults, up to and including murder. Thus according to the ADL:
…The Confederate Hammerskins of Dallas were both the first Hammerskin group and the first to come to public attention… During [the] summer [of 1988] and into the fall, the Hammerskins vandalized a synagogue and a Jewish community center by shooting out windows, smashing doors and spray painting anti-Semitic slogans and swastikas. Michael Lawrence also committed violent crimes with skinheads Christopher Jones, Daniel Roush and Forrest Hyde in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the following year. The Tulsa group firebombed a minority-owned nightclub and assaulted its nonwhite patrons.
In June 1991, Arlington, Texas, was the site of further violence by Hammerskins. Three 16-year-old members of the Confederate Hammerskins murdered an African American, Donald Thomas, while he sat on the back of a truck with two white friends. Joshua Hendry claimed that after he, William Roberts and Christopher Brosky drank about two cases of beer, Roberts said that he wanted to “do a drive-by” and “shoot a black person.” According to Hendry, after he and Brosky agreed, Roberts readied a sawed-off shotgun. Hendry later testified that when the three passed Thomas, Brosky yelled “shoot him!” and Roberts pulled the trigger.
Also in 1991, Jimmy “Soda Pop” Miller, an Arizona Hammerskin, firebombed a residence he mistakenly thought was occupied by rival skinheads. Miller also defaced a synagogue. Though he was sentenced to more than five years for these crimes, he was released after serving only two years in prison. That same year, in Birmingham, Alabama, Hammerskin Louis Oddo and his colleague Adam Galleon murdered a 50-year-old black homeless man on Christmas Eve. Oddo and Galleon killed the man, Douglas Garrett, by hitting him with a baseball bat and kicking him with their heavy boots. Oddo and Galleon were subsequently convicted of murder.
Less than two years later, in the summer and fall of 1993, members of the New Dawn Hammerskins defaced two synagogues, harassed black patrons of a local bookstore and assaulted two black girls in Brockton and Randolph, Massachusetts. In July 1994, these Hammerskins were charged with conspiring to intimidate and interfere with the rights of black and Jewish citizens. The leader of the group, Brian Joseph Clayton, was also the only adult among the defendants. He pled guilty to the charges and received 46 months in prison.
The next major incident of Hammerskin-related violence took place on March 17, 1999, in an open field near Temecula, California. Six Western Hammerskins (Travis Miskam, Daniel Butler, Alan Yantis, Gregory McDaniel, Jesse Douglas and Jason McCully) allegedly attacked a 23-year-old African American, Randy Bowen. They apparently chose to attack him simply because he was black, approaching him without provocation at an unplanned youth gathering. Miskam reportedly hit Bowen over the head with a beer bottle, and when Bowen asked him why, Miskam allegedly replied, “We don’t like niggers here; I don’t like niggers.” According to legal documents, as Bowen tried to flee, the Hammerskins chased him, shouting “Die, nigger,” “Get that nigger,” “Kill that nigger,” and “We’re going to get you, nigger.” Between them, the Hammerskins carried a bottle, a screwdriver, a folding knife and a razor knife. They cut and stabbed Bowen on his head and back before he escaped to a stranger’s home. Witnesses indicated that after attacking Bowen, the Hammerskins started goose-stepping, giving Nazi salutes and singing German songs.
On August 16, 1999, a grand jury indicted the four adult Hammerskins involved in the attack (Miskam, Butler, Yantis and McDaniel) on charges of attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder with enhancements for gang affiliation and commission of a hate crime. In March 2001, as Miskam, Yantis and Douglas awaited trial, Butler, McDaniel and McCully pled guilty to assault with a deadly weapon and committing a hate crime. In addition, lawyers representing Bowen filed a civil suit that aims to force all six Hammerskins involved in the attack, their families, and the Hammerskin Nation to pay Bowen general and punitive damages. The suit alleges that the Hammerskins are a “street gang,” as defined by the California Penal Code, and describes the group as encouraging its members, including the defendants, “to commit acts of violence and intimidation against African-Americans to promote their white supremacist goals.”
But the fun doesn’t stop there. No, the Hammerskins are a persistent bunch, and when they’re not organising gigs at The Birmy, or, like Douglas Schott and his band Blood Red Eagle (or Damian Ovchynik and his band Bail Up!) travelling interstate and overseas to perform at other Hammerskins’ gigs, they remain busy trying to kill kikes, niggers and race traitors.
SEMINOLE COUNTY, FL — Three days before Hammerfest 2007 kicks off, three members of the Confederate Hammerskins (CHS) will be standing before a judge for their role in the botched home invasion of a local antifa on Sep. 1.
Coby Wayne Stonecypher, 35, of Christmas, [Florida], Gary Allen Armstrong, 28, of Casselbery, FL and Johnathan Wayne Singleton, 26, of Ocoee, FL will be at the Criminal Justice Center on Oct. 2 at 1:30PM in Sanford, FL before Judge Debra S. Nelson. The three have either posted bail or were released pending trial. They have all been ordered not to go near the house where they attempted to stage an early evening attack on a well-known antifascist activist that Stonecypher [has] had a grudge against for years. The three ended up getting soundly beaten by that antifa and two others, and they were arrested as they tried to flee.
CHS has a long history in the state of Florida and over the years have engaged in a number of violent acts in the state. They were reportedly responsible for shooting out the window of the Jacksonville, FL club ‘Thee Imperial’ to prevent them from having a anti-racist show on Dec. 16, and earlier this year, CHS members Tom Martin, 23, and John Rock, 35, were arrested by the FBI after an informant wore a wire to a meeting and agreed to help them rob a drug dealer in Casselberry, FL. They [?] have also [been] made… into virtual punching bags for antifa and underground music scenesters alike in the state. The most notable incident [occurred] when Forrest Fog[a]rty, the lead singer of the white power band Attack and current Army active duty who has done tours in Iraq, was beaten and cut badly by attendees of a show by the Buffalo, NY band Snapcase, which is known for being decidedly anti-racist. Coby Stonecypher has been noted by those familiar with him as the right-hand man of CHS’s leader Ritchie Myers, and has served time in jail on a hate crime charge in 1999 stemming from an assault charge for allegedly threatening a black man in connection with a neo-Nazi gathering at a hotel in Plant City, FL.
Ironically, the Hammerskin court date is also the same day that National Vanguard founder Kevin Alfred Strom will be in court in Virginia facing child porn charges.
Strom eventually eventually plead guilty to one charge of possessing child pornography.
That story comes courtesy of DLJ / One People’s Project. See also Hate-crime case award will be hard to collect, experts say, Sean Nelson, The Press-Enterprise, August 24, 2007:
A man described as a recruiter for a white supremacist group and the parents and sisters of two men convicted of beating and slashing Randy Wordell Bowen, who is black, were ordered to pay damages…
Some men charged and sentenced in the Bowen case were admitted members of Western Hammerskins, a regional branch of an international white-supremacy group. Roth said he filed the suit to stop Western Hammerskins from operating in the Murrieta area.
Tim Hales, commander of the Murrieta-Temecula Regional Gang Task Force, said the prosecution and civil lawsuits against members and their families likely contributed to the declining visibility of Hammerskins.
Riverside County prosecutors called the attack on Bowen one of the worst racially motivated crimes in county history.
Bowen was struck in the head with a bottle and chased by a group of people — many of whom shouted racial slurs and Nazi slogans — during a 1999 bonfire party in the Temecula Valley Wine Country, prosecutors said at the time. He was then beaten and slashed across the back with a straight razor, prosecutors said.
In 2001 and 2002, six men charged in the beating were sentenced to prison terms ranging from four to 20 years.
The convicted men and three others involved in the attack but not criminally charged were subsequently sued in civil court and ordered by a judge to pay Bowen about $4.8 million in damages, Roth said.
Ring Dang Doo!
I don’t think it takes a genius to work out that maybe the Hammerskins are a bunch of psychotic racists. Further, that they’re probably not a group of people worth supporting. But Gary Birmy doesn’t think so, and the same could be said of Blood & Honour, the other neo-Nazi organisation his pub has played host to.
Response
As noted, there has been no official response by Starlight to the gig, or the use by its organisers of the Starlight logo. There have been a small number of other responses however. Darrin Hodges (aka the Anglo-Australian National Community Council — described by MediaWatch as a “White supremacist” organisation) is among a small number of local racists and other critics who’ve attempted, perhaps inevitably, to distort the very plain message of the FDB! press release (issued on Monday February 4) in relation to the gig. (More recently, Hodges gained some small degree of notoriety by campaigning against the construction of an Islamic school in Camden to service members of what he describes as that “despicable religion of filth”.) Thus according to Darrin:
Thursday, February 07, 2008
“Anti-racist” group FightDemBack! smear Starlight Foundation children’s charity as “nazis”
The fightdemback! group - a self-proclaimed “anti-racist” group - have taken to smearing the Starlight Foundation (a charity organisation to help very ill children and their families) by claiming the charity endorses Nazism. FDB! is an extremist leftwing organisation who spend their time persecuting anyone they see as their political enemies[.] [T]o attack a children’s charity in this manner is disgusting and vile…
They are fully prepared to destroy a charity dedicated to helping children with cancer simply to further their own political goals. Andrew (owner of the “slackbastard” blog), Cam Smith and associate [Mathew Henderson-Hau] are clearly sick and twisted individuals if they think they can use seriously ill children as a political football - their condemnation is deserved.
On the other hand, according to the Reverend Jack Petty:
Reverend Jack Petty Says:
February 9, 2008 at 5:44 am
Good on you mate!
It[’]s great to see someone put in so much effort to keep money from dying kids. Presenting false info[r]mation and slander is one thing but this really is a new low, even for a sad cunt like you.
Chunga of The Worst:
You really sunk to an all time low haven’t you Andy? Going out of your way to stop people who are trying to do a good thing… is not cool.
It seems your beliefs are that anyone who doesn’t conform to your same beliefs is apparently a nazi or nazi sympathiser or a wanker. You wouldn’t know a thing about anarchy if the definition was tattooed on your fucking face. And you deserve a bat to the head for changing that Starlight flyer you pathetic cunt!
andysadeadmanwalking:
you’re going to die you fuckwit! you must have a boring life that you sit here all day writing bullshit that isnt true… good life fuckhead! die already…
The standard response on the part of local racists and apologists for The Birmy, in other words, has been engendered. Lies, threats of violence, and slander. As for The Birmy itself, word on the street is that it may be sold. Let’s hope that the new proprietors, unlike its current owners, understand that neo-Nazis really aren’t welcome in Marvellous Melbourne.
The Acting Minister for Consumer Affairs, Andre Haermeyer, today reminded Victorian individuals, businesses and community groups fundraising for victims of Asia’s tsunami tragedy about their legal requirements.
“The community response to this disaster has been overwhelming, and I commend all those who have organised events and other activities to raise money for the relief effort,” Mr Haermeyer said.
“However, all organisations or individuals who raise money in Victoria must abide by fundraising laws…
Mr Haermeyer said the Fundraising Appeal Act required all people raising funds for appeals, including businesses, to be registered, meet account and record keeping requirements and comply with proper collections methods, such as wearing identification and using secure collection containers.
The penalty for unregistered fundraising in Victoria is a $24,000 fine for a corporation and a $12,000 fine, or one-year jail term, or both, for an individual…
Also, collectors raising money for registered fundraisers must be authorised by the registered fundraiser to raise money on their behalf…
The Melbourne Knights soccer club has apologised for allowing a rock concert to be staged for neo-Nazi skinheads. Deep splits have emerged in the club, which was founded by the city’s Croatian community 55 years ago.
It’s an unlikely venue for a neo-Nazi rock concert, but believe or not, this was where a group of skinheads gathered just two weeks ago - the Melbourne Knights Social Club. And this was the headline act - American neo-Nazi rock band Final War, and this is their message of hate.
FINAL WAR SONG: # By voices loud and clear # Inform the youth of the truth # The Jews’ greatest fear…#
On the clip taken from YouTube, Final War performs a song it calls ‘Aryan Pride’. In another, it boasts “We fight Jews.” Final War was brought here by the Australian arm of the neo-Nazi group Blood and Honour. Group members in the United States and Europe have reportedly been jailed for assaults, bombings and murders, but the Melbourne Knights chief says he had no idea about the concert and has condemned the band’s poisonous message.
MATT TOMAS, MELBOURNE KNIGHTS CHAIRMAN: In my eyes, these people that support these Nazi regimes are scum, OK? They are not affiliated with this club, they will never be accepted by our club.
Mr Tomas says the Knights’ social club must shoulder the blame because, legally, it’s a separate organisation. And in an extraordinary attack, he’s accused the club’s organisers of utter incompetence. A social club committee member admits they made a mistake. The Jewish human rights watchdog is outraged.
MANNY WAKS, B’NAI B’RITH ANTI-DEFAMATION COMMISSION: In our multicultural society here in Australia, these sorts of views are not to be tolerated and are unacceptable.
MATT TOMAS: I’d just like to apologise to all communities that this may have brought any heartache to. It wasn’t intended and it’s not supported by the Melbourne Knights.
The social club which accepted the reservation has apologised for failing to check the background of those booking its venue. But this is not the first time that the Knights social club has found itself in hot water. It’s been criticised by Jews for ignoring protests after naming its hall in inner-city Melbourne after a Nazi collaborator. Jewish groups want the police to investigate. They say the concert was held amid a climate of fear in the community. Just weeks before, they say, four Jewish people were punched and beaten with baseball bats in three separate incidents.
Neo-Nazis split Croat community
Greg Roberts
October 27, 2007
MELBOURNE’S Croatian community is under fire for hosting a rock concert for neo-Nazi skinheads, publishing anti-Semitic material on the internet and naming a building after fascist Croatian dictator Ante Pavelic.
The Melbourne Knights Soccer Club yesterday launched an extraordinary attack on its social arm, the Croatia Social Club, for hosting the October 13 concert by groups that incite violence and attacks against Jews and other minorities. “I am deeply disturbed that the good reputation of our football club has been tarnished by the social club’s incompetence,” Knights chairman Matt Tomas said.
The concert at the Knights’ North Sunshine complex was headlined by US neo-Nazi band Final War. The band describes itself as “defenders of the Reich”, and its songs boast: “We fight Jews”.
Australian skinhead band Fortress also played. Its song, Parasites, urges repatriation of immigrants: “If they don’t f..king like it, it’ll be in body bags”.
The concert was organised by the Australian chapters of neo-Nazi skinhead groups Blood and Honour and Southern Cross Hammer Skins. Group members in the US and Europe have been convicted of assaults, bombings and murders.
Anti-Semitic messages from the Knights’ Croatian fans are posted on the Knights Army Forum website. One posting says Jews would “sell their mothers for a dollar”.
Melbourne campaigner Cam Smith said anti-racism activists alerted the Knights to the nature of the concert several hours before it started. “As soon as we found out, we contacted whoever we could at the Knights through phone numbers on their website,” Mr Smith said. “They weren’t interested. One of their people asked one of our people if he was a dirty Jew.”
Mr Tomas said he did not know who was attending the concert, but he would investigate Mr Smith’s claim that Knights members were contacted, adding: “I don’t associate with that sort of scum. I’m utterly disgusted about this.”
Mr Tomas said the concert was approved by the Croatia Social Club, a separate legal entity to the football club.
Contacted by The Weekend Australian, social club manager Catarina Malacic denied the event was held. “There was nothing on at the venue that night,” she said.
Later, club committee member Ivan Skunca confirmed the premises were booked for a concert, but said the club did not know who made the booking. “It was a mistake. Perhaps we had an obligation to check these people out and we didn’t. We apologise for that.”
B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission director Manny Waks said he was disturbed the concert was held in view of links between the Croatian community and neo-Nazi elements.
Mr Waks said the Croatia Club — a separate entity to the Knights’ social club — had ignored Jewish protests against the naming of its Footscray hall after Ustashi Nazi collaborator Ante Pavelic, who was responsible for the slaughter of 700,000 Serbs, Jews and Gypsies.
VICTORIAN soccer bosses have come under fire from anti-racism groups after neo-Nazis hired grounds used by the Melbourne Knights Soccer Club to hold a racist rock concert.
Members of the white supremacist Hammerskins and Blood and Honour groups held a concert at Knights Stadium in Sunshine on October 13.
The ground is home to the soccer club and the Melbourne Croatia Social Club, which owns the site and hired out the venue.
Anti-racism campaigners yesterday criticised the Melbourne Knights and Football Federation Victoria for allowing the staging of the concert, which commemorated a dead white supremacist.
Anti-racism campaigner Anthony Main said the concert included overseas white power and local skinhead music groups.
“It’s racist music to the extreme, but it’s also a way for those guys to network and to meet,” Mr Main said.
He called on Football Federation Victoria to ensure the venues used by its clubs were hired out diligently.
Football Federation Victoria and the Melbourne Knights distanced themselves from the concert, saying they did not book events for the venue.
Melbourne Knights chairman Matt Tomas said the social club operated separately from the soccer club. He apologised for the incident, saying it was regrettable.
The neo-nazi big night out that never happened
Wednesday, 17 October 2007
Cam Smith writes:
Melbourne’s sporting world has had some unfortunate run-ins with racism in the last year. The attack on Menachem Vorchheimer by a group of Ocean Grove footballers (one of whom was later awarded ‘best and fairest’ by the club) on October 14 last year got things started and McKinnon Cricket Club kept the ball rolling when a number of their players made anti-Semitic comments on Facebook around August (the club expelled a number of players and the Victorian Turf Cricket Association suspended others).
Now, Melbourne Knights Stadium in the multicultural suburb of Sunshine has scored a racially vilifying hat trick by playing host to a neo-Nazi concert on Saturday night. In a political climate which could be charitably described as ‘racially tense’, this was probably not a good thing.
The yearly event - a tribute to deceased British fascist Ian Stuart Donaldson (lead singer of musically-challenged white power band Skrewdriver) - was organised by Blood & Honour and the Southern Cross Hammerskins, local branches of international networks responsible for numerous racist assaults, murders and bombings. Last year’s concert at the Birmingham Hotel in Fitzroy resulted in a racist attack on a young black woman who was walking by. She was surrounded by fascists who held her against her will and made her repeat racial slurs regarding her heritage. The subsequent publicity (and a community boycott) has seen a marked decrease in punk gigs and patronage at the pub.
Anti-fascists (including FightDemBack!, of which I am a member) discovered the venue of this year’s gig at around 4pm on Saturday and, in the hopes that the venue would follow the example of the Sherwood Elks Lodge in Oregon (who had cancelled a Hammerskins gig the week previous at the last minute), began calling anyone they could find associated with the club. The bookings manager denied all knowledge. The responses of Melbourne Knights junior coaches to requests to pass the information up the food chain ran the gamut from abject indifference through to sympathy with the neo-Nazis. One coach referred to his caller as a “dirty Jew” and hung up.
The bookings manager at the Melbourne Croatian Social Club (who own the stadium) again denied on Monday morning that the event took place. They say that the only event at the club over the weekend was a group watching the Croatia Vs. Israel game at 4.15 am on Sunday morning. But a Victoria Police spokesperson confirmed to Crikey that the event had indeed taken place at the club and was “closely monitored”.
Football Federation Victoria investigated the incident and found the Melbourne Knights were unaware. The same, according to FFV, could not be said of the social club. FFV says that the social club claimed it was a simple rock concert, and actually wanted them to clear out so they could watch their game. There is no indication that the club wanted them to leave because they had draped swastikas about the place.
At this stage, it remains unclear what action, if any, will be taken against the club.
The decision by Melbourne Croatia Social Club to allow their facilities to be used, on Saturday, October 13, by the local branches of two international neo-Nazi organisations (Blood & Honour (B&H) and the Hammerskins) in order to hold a gig is a step backwards, both for the club, and for the image of football in Victoria. It also contradicts the general aims and principles upon which the game is meant to be conducted.
The governing body for football (soccer) in Victoria is Football Federation Victoria (FFV). As part of its general rules of conduct, FFV advises players, parents, coaches, teachers and administrators to “Respect the rights, dignity and worth of all participants regardless of their gender, ability, cultural background or religion” (officials are instructed to “Give all young people a ‘fair go’ regardless of their gender, ability, cultural background or religion”). These, obviously, are worthy aims. But how does allowing for the propagation of neo-Nazi ideology serve to promote them? To put it mildly, it does not.
The recent assault on a Jewish teenager in Melbourne — by a pair of racist bogans armed with baseball bats and blonde mullets — prompted a more extensive AAP article on anti-Semitism in Australia, Anti-Semitism ‘reaching scary levels’ (The Age, August 23, 2007). The impetus for the article was presumably provided by the fact that the bashing followed on from the widely-publicised assault on Jewish businessman Menachem Vorchheimer last October (by a number of incredibly brave Ocean Grove footballers), and racist Internet postings made in August by some other terrifically sporting cricketers from McKinnon. Note that, to its credit, McKinnon Cricket Club appears to have responded much more positively to the racist commentary (allegedly) made by some of its senior members than Ocean Grove Football Club did in relation to the racist abuse and assault of Vorchheimer: in the immediate aftermath, club coach Matthew Sproule denied any wrongdoing on the part of his boys. (The situation was further complicated by the involvement of an off-duty policeman in the incident.)
The recent commentary by the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Kevin Andrews, regarding the supposed inability or reluctance of African immigrants — and those from Sudan in particular — to ‘integrate’ into Australian society sparked much, er, reflection. So too, did the recent murder of one of those immigrants, 19 year-old Liep Gony, and the bashing of another, 17 year-old Ajang Gor.
Naturally, in keeping with their ideology (and in addition to ZOG), much of the anger of Blood & Honour and the Hammerskins is directed at blacks. In the US, for example, Hammerskins have murdered a number of black people, and assaulted numerous more. Further, partly because of its racist, fascist views, Blood & Honour has been outlawed in Germany and Spain, and its banning is under consideration in Belgium and Holland.
In Australia, on the other hand…
During the course of the last ten years, B&H and the Hammerskins have been provided with a venue by the management of an inner-city pub in Melbourne called The Birmingham Hotel. As a result of the negative publicity surrounding the exposure of the pub’s role in doing so, however — and despite the vocal support of a small number of local, right-wing nationalist fashion punks and skinheads — these neo-Nazi groups have this year been forced to look further afield for a venue willing to stoop to their level, and unfortunately it appears that they have found one in the Melbourne Croatia Social Club. Exactly why this is the case is unknown at this stage, but presumably there are elements within the Club only too happy to cater to fair dinkum neo-Nazis, and these organisations in particular which, over the course of the last twenty years, have a string of violent criminal activities to their credit. And now the Melbourne Croatia Social Club, to their er, credit, may boast of having hosted these organisations.
I wonder what the football federations think?
See also : One-Nil by Mouth : Is it ever wrong to hit a bigot?, Steven Wells, Philadelphia Weekly, October 10, 2007 (”[Eric] Cantona’s defining moment came when he reacted to a fan shouting, “F*** off back to France, you French motherf***er!” by attempting to drop-kick the swine in the chest and then punch his head off. The media were outraged. “You would have thought that the pope had been gang-raped by aliens,” wrote [one] soccer writer… But when it turned out the abusive fan had attended neo-Nazi rallies and had been convicted of attacking a Sri Lankan-born immigrant with a 3-foot spanner, all right-thinking people applauded Cantona as an anti-racist hero. “It’s very ironic that it took a white Frenchman to bring home to the nation the issue of racism in football,” said black British soccer player John Barnes…) | Mussolini Headkick : Materazzi Headbutt? | kickitout | FARE…
We want to see the ‘beautiful game’ played without the cancer of racism. Football is the biggest sport in the world and belongs to us all. It should be the right of every person to play, watch and discuss freely, without fear.
Unfortunately, at all levels of the game, from amateur to international, there are incidents of racism. Be it from fans, players, clubs or other football bodies, FARE believes that such behaviour, on and off the field, is unacceptable and unwanted by the majority of fans and players.
FARE aims to rid the game of racism by combining the resources of anti-racist football organisation throughout Europe. It helps to support and nurture groups and coordinates efforts on an European scale. By working together, FARE helps organisations share good practice and present a united front against racism in football.
White supremacists are holding a rock concert in Wellington tonight to commemorate Adolf Hitler’s birthday.
The plan has appalled Jewish and anti-racist groups but they say, though the event is offensive, it is not illegal.
The concert, organised by local branches of skinhead gang Hammerskins and neo-Nazi organisation Blood and Honour - which has been banned in parts of Europe, will bring Australian “viking rock” band Blood Red Eagle to play in Wellington tonight. Adolf Hitler was born on April 20.
It is understood the gig was scheduled to play at the Berhampore headquarters of motorcycle gang Satan’s Slaves, but Hammerskins this week announced a secret venue change “due to differences”. Sources believe Satan’s Slaves may have fallen out with event organisers.
Race Relations Commissioner Joris de Bres said the plans, while offensive to many, were not illegal. “Mercifully, there aren’t many people in New Zealand happy to celebrate Hitler’s birthday. I don’t think it’s going to be a very big party.”
Wellington Jewish community leader and Israeli honorary consul David Zwartz said it was “distasteful and offensive”, but racism was an unfortunate part of many Western societies now. “I think that will just continue as long as there are some people who live with the obsessions that these people have, which are racist and hateful.” Anti-racist groups are also appalled at the move.
“I find it disturbing that people belonging to two organisations internationally known (and even banned) for inciting race hate and committing attacks and murders should be organising here,” one campaigner told The Dominion Post.
Wellington police said they were aware of the event, but were not expecting any trouble.
Our mate @ndy has written a thingo about our mate Ben “Speed Racer” Weerheym - the Perth-based hip-hopping, part-Jewish neo-Nazi and retirement-home-vandal. O-kay!
Here it is, in all it’s glory:
Sorry, this was just too !nataS to ignore. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: Ben Weerheym! The lying little fascist weasel has reproduced a comment on Melbourne Indymedia regarding the recent protest at local neo-Nazi pub The Birmy, claiming not only that it’s ‘real good’ but written by a sympathetic academic… who was actually there.
Ed: The following article is written by an academic from Melbourne who was present at the protest of self proclaimed “anti-fascists”… [who caused] a public nuisance at… The Birmingham Hotel in [Fitzroy]. This public nuisance and illegal [sic] demo[n]stration was in response to the Victorian chapter of [the] international [neo-Nazi network] Blood and Honour holding a [gig] at the hotel a week [sic] [prior]. The academic in question is rather switched on [Ben the wigger, Ben the Jew… or Ben the hippy?!?] and has some some [sic] real home-truth[s] to tell us… about the bigotry and double standards of the hypocritical far-left. Keep in mind that there are Black Nationalists and Arab Nationalists… but of course we don’t see leftist morons making a fuss about them!
Yeah… maybe, Ben… but what we certainly do see is fascist morons like Boof’Ed making piss-funny attempts at being “all intellectual… ‘n’ that”. In reality, the “academic from Melbourne who was present at the protest” is a British fascist named Aidan Rankin. (According to the site where you can read the full version of his shitty article, Rankin “is co-Editor of New European. His book, The Politics of the Forked Tongue: Authoritarian Liberalism was published in 2002 and is available from New European Publications“.) Further, Rankin wrote this diatribe years ago, and in reference to the BNP and the ANL, not The Birmy and Melbourne antifa! Whoever plagiarised his scribblings simply re-contextualised them, and removed the stuff what was too… hard. Then made the foreign toff travel to Melbourne, where he re-wrote history. Or something.
…a tiny offshoot of the National Front which calls itself Third Way. This is the group which most clearly articulates the way in which the politics of the hard right are shifting.
Third Way, which was founded in 1990 by the Front’s former chairman and vice-chairman, claims to reject “racism and the politics of hate.” But it believes that cultures should, for their own good, be kept apart, and defended from “mass immigration”. Globalisation, the splinter group claims, “reduces us to a rootless, transient population disconnected from its history”, precipitating ecological crisis and encouraging migration. The party’s leader, Patrick Harrington, has made contact with the black separatist Nation of Islam and orthodox Jews pursuing “separate development”. Third Way, like many far right groups, has abandoned overt racist aggression in favour of cultural isolation…
Whichever fascist twat plagiarised Rankin’s work — ooops, “a Melbourne academic” in Weerheym the weirdo’s phantasy — may well come from Melbourne, but the only thing they apparently had to contribute was a question almost as daft as Rankin’s argument:
“You say Fascism implies support for big business, and a large, controlling, central power[,] and talk about beer-swilling yobs?”
Um… the salad?
I’m a beer-swilling yob; I hate capitalism; I hate fascism; and I can spot a dickhead a mile away. Oh, and speaking of dickheads who come from miles away, the gig was also attended by the busy little neo-Nazi bee Welf Herfurth from B&H NSW. Herfurth seems to have assigned himself the role of roving Ambassador for the NPD in Australia — presumably in order to impart the NPD’s considerable organisational experience to local kameraden.
Protesters put hard word on Fitzroy pub
By MARIKA DOBBIN
More than 150 punks, skinheads, feminists and other protesters picketed a Fitzroy hotel on Saturday to condemn a recent neo-Nazi concert at the pub.
Tensions were high when the protesters entered the Birmingham Hotel to demand that publican Gary, who wouldn’t give his surname, answer questions about the gig and join other Smith Street traders by putting an anti-racism sticker in his window.
“It’s not my job to ask people what their beliefs are,” Gary told the protesters who crowded the public bar. He agreed to put the sticker up if protesters left.
Patrons of the bar reacted angrily to the protesters, saying two neo-Nazi gigs in five years didn’t make the Birmingham a nazi pub. A couple drinking at the pub told TMT they had been wrongly accused of nazism and narrowly avoided being bashed by men driving past after they left the pub last week.
During Saturday’s protest, police broke up a scuffle between Gary and the punks who put stickers outside on the hotel’s signs.
“I don’t believe discriminatory groups have a right to organise,” said one of the punks, Adam (who also wouldn’t give his surname) from Footscray. “They have no justifiable reason to have a venue in our community.”
He said that neo-Nazi skinheads, or boneheads, were a small subculture within the punk and skinhead movements but people often didn’t understand the distinction. “We cop it from them as much as anyone.”
Protesters also attached placards reading “Fuck Nazis” and “Fuck off Fascists” to signs in Smith and Johnston streets.
Claire from Coburg said: “We want to show this pub how much opposition there is to nazism in this area, so they stop letting them come here.”
It’s interesting to see bar patrons refer to two neo-Nazi gigs in five years. By our count, there’s been a few more than that. And as we said in our report on the protest, Gary might reckon it’s not his job to keep nazis out, but other Melbourne pubs don’t seem to have any trouble doing it.
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