Three Toronto self-avowed Nazis were besieged last night by a rock-throwing crowd which broke most of the windows and left a hangman’s noose on the door of their new East End Toronto headquarters. The attackers were all residents of the neighborhood, a completely Anglo-Saxon working class section of Toronto.
At the height of the 30-minute episode, the Nazi trio’s leader, William John Beattie, brandished a rifle at the crowd. “We were scared. They were shouting: ‘Kill them, kill them,'” said Beattie after police were rushed to the house and dispersed the crowd.
The meeting room of the headquarters, dominated by a large swastika flag, was littered with stones and boulders, including an eight-foot piece of drainspout showed through the window. Beattie charged that police at first refused to provide protection for the Nazis and did so only when he threatened to complain to the police commission chairman.
Earlier, an angry white-haired grandmother punched the “fuehrer” when he gave a heel-clicking salute to his Jeering neighbors. “You’re nothing but a bunch of dirty thugs.” said Mrs. Edward Deane as she struck Beattie. Her three sons served with the Canadian forces in World War II. “First we had termites, now thesel” said another disgusted neighbor. The city building commissioner is checking into the alleged violation of the zoning by-laws by the neo-Nazis. The headquarters are located in a residential area, where club houses or “headquarters” are not permitted.
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.
