Former students of James Keegstra testified in a packed courthouse this week that their high school teacher in Eckville, Alberta had taught them that Jews were guilty of the most heinous crimes in history and must be erradicated.
Keegstra, a former mayor of Eckville who was ousted from the Alberta school system for preaching anti-Semitism, went on trial in Red Deer, Alberta Monday for violating Canadian laws against promoting racial and religious hatred. One of his pupils, Lorene Baxter, who took the stand yesterday, read from her 12th grade notes, dictated by Keegstra, that the Jacobin reign of terror after the French Revolution was instigated by Jews and included cannibalism. Napoleon was described as “shephered of the Jews” and Sigmund Freud as a “Marxist Jew” who participated in drug and sex orgies.
On Tuesday, 19-year-old Richard Denis read an essay he wrote in the 12th grade two years ago to the effect that Jews instigated the French and Russian revolutions and the two world wars and “we must get rid of every Jew in existence in order to live in peace and freedom.” Denis maintained under cross examination by defense counsel that he wrote that essay to please Keegstra in the hope of getting higher marks.
STUDENT BREAKS INTO TEARS
Fifteen-year-old Paul Maddox, the first of 25 prosecution witnesses, testified in tears Monday that Keegstra taught that Jews were “crooks”, thieves and communists who were trying to enslave the world. The youth’s mother, Susan Maddox, 37, who was one of the parents of Eckville high school students who first complained two years ago that Keegstra was using his classroom to present his anti-Semitic theories, also testified.
She was followed on the stand Tuesday by Dick Hoeksema, the teacher who replaced Keegstra. He said the first question students confronted him with was did he believe in the Jewish conspiracy. He testified that he told the class he did not but the students discussed the subject incessantly. They told him that the red rose Canadian Premier Pierre Elliott Trudeau wears in his lapel was a symbol of the communist conspiracy of which Trudeau was a part and that Trudeau was put in power by the Jews.
Keegstra was defeated last year in a bid for reelection as mayor of Eckville, a farm community of 900. Although his anti-Semitism was not an issue in the campaign — there are no Jews living in Eckville — the downfall of the once popular teacher and politician was attributed in part to local revulsion against his views.
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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.
