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Posted on 04/22/2004 6:22:26 AM PDT by Alouette
(IsraelNN.com) The 150-year-old Turn Verein ("gymnastic club" in German) social club in Sacramento, California booted out a Holocaust-deniers conference that was to take place on its premises this coming weekend. The conference, organized under Walter Mueller's European American Culture Council, had to be cancelled.
Turn Verein spokespeople claim that they were unaware of the nature of the conference at the time the reservations were made. However, as soon as the matter was brought to their attention this week, Sacramento Turn Verein withdrew their agreement to host the 325-person anti-Semitic conference and returned the European American Culture Council deposit on the hall.
The club was started shortly after the Gold Rush by German and Swiss immigrants to America. Today, it has members of many faiths and extractions.
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When I lived on the upper east side of Manhattan, even though a Jew, I always attended the annual Steuben Day Parade on Fifth Ave. when I could. The evidence shows that the vast majority of German-Americans have always been Americans first.
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A "culture council" sounded like a good tenant for the 150-year-old German-American social organization. So Turn Verein - German for "gymnastic club" - booked Mueller's meeting into its hall for this weekend, anticipating two days of scholarly talks and heavy meals.
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Mueller contends that he did not hide the theme of the conference when he made the rental arrangements with the club's housemaster.
"Yes, I'm aware of the irony," Mueller said in an interview. "It's a German hall and we're holding a Holocaust denial conference there. We were surprised - absolutely - when they said yes."
But Turn Verein President Gert Samelin says he had no idea of the event's nature until he read about it last week in The Bee. Surrounded by his club trustees Tuesday morning, Samelin literally shuddered as he recounted his shock at the discovery.
"I said to myself: My gosh, what is an international revisionist conference? What are we getting into?" Samelin said. "This is nothing we want any part of. And this is six weeks before we celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Turn Verein!"
He said the club, started shortly after the Gold Rush by German and Swiss immigrants, takes no political positions and has members of many faiths. And, Samelin said, he personally has no doubt that the Holocaust happened.
"I was 10 years old when World War II ended, a child in Germany," he said. "I know these atrocities occurred."
Club trustees Norbert Duester and Erwin Zacharias nodded soberly. "We are not Nazis," said Duester, 75.
On Saturday, with the revisionist conference just a week away, Samelin consulted a lawyer, who advised him to void the contract on grounds that Mueller had misrepresented the nature of the meeting. Samelin sent a registered letter to Mueller.
Learning of Samelin's action, Mueller went online Tuesday to announce, "Jews force the Sacramento Turn Verein to cancel!" His Internet site states that Turn Verein "caved in to the massive pressure of the Jewish community."
Samelin, however, said he was not pressured by Jewish leaders - in fact, he called them to apologize for the situation.
Mueller says he is infuriated by the cancellation but has notified the 325 conference participants the event is off. He spoke Tuesday at his North Sacramento home, still decorated with dozens of Easter bunnies and pastel eggs.
"What are we, criminals?" asked Mueller, who is known in town as an activist and unabashed community provocateur. "Are we the scum of the earth? Turn Verein took our money; they cashed our checks. I made no secret of who we are."
Turn Verein did return the group's deposit.
But Mueller, a chef, was planning to cater the event himself. He's now stuck with gallons of chopped cabbage and 200 pounds of pork roast. He called Turn Verein's action a breach of contract that would cost him thousands of dollars.
But he said he is more outraged by what he sees as an abridgement of his free speech.
"What is this, Russia?" he demanded. "I think the First Amendment still applies here."
Samelin said he believes in the First Amendment: "That's one reason I came to America, and I'm glad for it. You can have free speech whenever you want - but not on the Turn Verein property."
Jewish community leaders said they are relieved that the conference will not be held here - especially after the 1999 firebombings that torched three local synagogues, said Len Feldman of the Sacramento Jewish Community Relations Council.
"The essence of it is that the Sacramento community - not just the Jewish community - has made it clear ... that racism and discrimination have no place in Sacramento at all," Feldman said.
"Still, in a funny way, it's important to have groups like Mr. Mueller's deny the murder of six million Jews and a million non-Jews, because it convinces the rest of us how vital it is to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive."
That sentiment extends beyond the Jewish community, said Dexter McNamara of the Interfaith Service Bureau.
"We need to build a community in which we respect each other," said McNamara, a Presbyterian minister, "which is the exact opposite of what this conference would have created."
No. You are what the scum sees when it looks down.
Eat sh*tcabbage and die.
Y'know, it offends me that holocaust deniers have to use the term "European American." I am of European American extraction (but American first) and have nothing in common with these sick, twisted pathetic individuals.
We should call them what they are. Bigots.
Now the mosque won't host it either. Isn't that just too freaking bad!
NAZI buttmunch doesn't understand the 1A at all. It prohibits the Government to infringe free speech. Turn Verein is a private club, with the right to control the use of its property as it sees fit. Disinviting a bunch of totalitarian morons is a thoroughly appropriate exercise of that right.
"Still, in a funny way, it's important to have groups like Mr. Mueller's deny the murder of six million Jews and a million non-Jews, because it convinces the rest of us how vital it is to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive."
Somebody's denying the murder of about five million gentiles ... Kind of ironic that the denier is in the same breath condemning holocaust deniers.
Never thought you did. A sure sign of evil is that it disguises its real goals with euphemisms. ("Pro-Choice" and "Gun Control," anyone?)
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