Hotel hosting neo-Nazi rally ‘thought it was another religious group’

The Holiday Inn here played host to a neo-Nazi rally Sunday because “we just thought it was another religious group,” the front-desk manager told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency today. The participants–the White Action Movement, the National Renaissance Party, the Ku Klux Klan and others–were rented a room at the inn under the name of the “Mountain Church of Jesus Christ,” reported John Thomson.

He added that once the true identities of the participants became known, “we tried every way possible” to bar them, but found there was “no legal right” to do so since “Mountain Church of Jesus Christ” is apparently the legally registered umbrella name for the group. Besides, Thomson said, spokesmen for the participants threatened to march on the Inn 400-strong, and the Inn was afraid that “someone might get hurt.” As it turned out, several celebrants were involved in a scuffle at the Inn’s bar that disrupted the “Church” social.

One man, a Philadelphian, was pummeled in a dispute over money with two others, one of whom shouted “I’ll kill the Jew bastard.” It was not clear if the man was really Jewish; he had come expecting “a beer-and-knockwurst session.” A New Yorker and self-admitted Klan member was arrested for disorderly conduct and released on $100 bail.

At the meeting, which lasted from 6 p.m. to nearly midnight, speeches were made in honor of Hitler’s birthday–he would have been 83 last Tuesday–and a two-and-a-half-hour film of the 1934 Nuremberg Rally was shown. After singing the “George Lincoln Rockwell Battle Song” and “Happy Birthday, Dear Fuehrer,” the celebrants shouted “Sieg Heil!” and shared a cake bedecked with swastikas.

12 ESTABLISHMENTS REJECT GROUP

Anthony Degleris, senior vice president of the 1400-unit Holiday Inn chain, declined comment from his headquarters in State College, Pa., on reports that the White Action Movement will sue the Inn in Bordentown, N.J., for not granting a meeting room. He confirmed, however, that the neo-Nazis had been rejected by 12 establishments–not necessarily all Holiday Inns–before being accepted by the Trenton Inn. (In Bordentown, Inn manager Douglas Neilson refused to discuss the matter.)

Degleris said the Bordentown Inn refused permission because it had received threatening telephone calls and was “responsible for the bodily integrity of our customers and their safety.” The Inn feared “open confrontation” if the meeting was held, he contended, but he conceded that there was no known link between the callers and the would-be celebrants. “We have suffered enough, we have been harassed for days,” Degleris said ruefully in asking the JTA not to publicize the incident after answering questions for 10 minutes.