Ernst Zundel, a resident alien in Canada since 1958, was sentenced to 15 months imprisonment and three years probation by a federal judge yesterday for spreading the lie that the Holocaust did not occur.
Zundel, 46, a citizen of West Germany, was convicted under a section of the Canadian criminal code forbidding the dissemination of false information, in his booklet “Did Six Million Really Die?” While the maximum penalty is two years in prison, any sentence over six months makes him liable to deportation proceedings.
During the three year probation period, Zundel is enjoined from writing, communicating or speaking directly or indirectly on the subject of the Holocaust. The defense is expected to appeal.
In pronouncing sentence, Judge Hugh Locke delivered a scathing denunciation of the convict, declaring “You are not a publisher. You are a neo-Nazi.” He said Zundel’s activities were a crude, unacceptable intrusion into the lives of Canadians. He described Zundel’s booklet as a “false and racist diatribe.”
Noting that Zundel showed no signs of contrition, the Judge stressed that the sentence reflects not only the feelings of the Jewish community but the entire Canadian people. He accepted, however, what he referred to as the grudging apology of Zundel’s defense attorney, Douglas Christie, for his behavior during the trial.
Christie’s courtroom tactics, for which the judge threatened to cite him for contempt, was to try to place the Holocaust, not the defendant, on trial.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
