Archive/File: orgs/canadian/canadian-jewish-congress/marches-to-modems/mtm-002-02
Last-Modified: 1997/03/30

2.2 Paul Fromm
by Manuel Prutschi and Bernie M. Farber

Paul Fromm is a former school board trustee and has been a
public school teacher for nearly two decades. But his career
as a racist activist stretches back to his own student days
at the University of Toronto.

There, in the late 1960's he was one of the founders, with
Donald Andrews and Leigh Smith, of the Edmund Burke
Society..

Although nominally conservative and anti-communist, the
Edmund Burke Society quickly degenerated into something much
more sinister. The group was involved in several violent
confrontations with radical left and anti-war groups in
Toronto during those turbulent years. But in the early 70's
the group forged links with American Nazi and Ku Klux Klan
groups and transformed itself into the more extreme Western
Guard. Although he resigned from the Guard shortly after the
group - and his leadership role in it - became public, Fromm
belonged long enough to be the opening speaker at a May,
1972 banquet to which the "Reverend" Robert Miles gave the
keynote address. Miles was a former Klan leader who'd become
a leading ideologist in the racist Christian Identity
movement, a viciously anti-black, antisemitic "religion".
Soon after his Canadian appearance, Miles spent close to 6
years in jail for his involvement in the bombing of ten
school buses in Pontiac, Michigan and the tarring and
feathering of an area school principal.

Shortly after accounts of that meeting were reported in the
Toronto Sun, Fromm and
several others resigned, effectively leaving the Guard under
the control of  Andrews. The group lasted a few more years
before it disintegrated under pressure from local law
enforcement officials. Andrews later served two jail terms,
one for conspiracy to create mischief and  possession of
explosives, and one for wilfully promoting hatred against
non-whites.

Don Andrews remains the nominal leader of the virtually
defunct Nationalist Party of Canada.  Today, the NP seems to
rouse itself for but one brief burst of annual political
activity - the  production and mail-out of letters and a
poster urging the adoption of a so-called "European
Heritage Week".

Since his EBS days, Fromm has consistently striven to
portray himself as nothing more extreme  than a simple
conservative. But his views, his actions and his
associations have continuously  betrayed him.

Fromm has borne a long standing animus against minorities
and immigrants who do not fit into his  profile of what
Canada should look like. In one of his publications,
"Canadian Population and  Immigration Quarterly" the item
headings tell the story:

     * Cuban slasher gets 16 year jail term
     * Guianese immigrants [sic] rapes and beats wife then
     strangles her sister
     * Tunisian charged with murder of Canadian
     * Senior citizen mugged by black
     * Black gangs pillage Toronto
     * Watch out for the flood from Hong Kong

Fromm's views on minorities and immigration, as early as
1981, disqualified him from mainstream  political activity
when he was fired as treasurer of the Federal Progressive
Conservative party's  Metro wing.

Early on, Fromm latched on to the freedom of speech issue,
defending the rights of hate-mongers,  such as Ernst Zundel,
James Keegstra, Malcolm Ross, Wolfgang Droege and others
without ever  repudiating or distancing himself from their
views, choosing instead to portray them as martyrs and
victims of witch-hunts.

On September 26, 1991, Fromm donned his "defender of free
speech" cloak once more to defend  the white racist Heritage
Front at a meeting of the Toronto Mayor's Committee on
Community,  Race and Ethnic Relations. During the meeting
Fromm called out "scalp them",
apparently  directing his remarks at the anti-racism
coordinator for the Native Canadian Centre, who was  making
a presentation on the activities of the Heritage Front.

Paul Fromm and his two primary propaganda vehicles, CAFE and
C-FAR, have often interacted with  Ron Gostick's Canadian
League of Rights, perhaps Canada's most durable antisemitic
and racist  organization. Fromm has also been a member of
the World Anti-communist League. In a 1986 book, 'Inside the
League,' in a list of what is mostly a rogues gallery of
extremists is found "Paul Fromm (Canada): Neo-Nazi and
historical revisionist ''<"Inside the League," Scott
Anderson, John Lee Anderson, McLellan Stewart, 1986>. The
identification of Fromm as a revisionist squares with his
sponsorship of lectures in Canada by Holocaust denier David
Irving and his introduction of a number of Arvin's speeches.

Definitive links between Fromm and Wolfgang Droege and the
Heritage Front have also been uncovered. The December 9,
1990 "Martyr's Day Rally" was a kind of "coming out" for
Paul Fromm. Fromm, as a video tape attests, spoke at the
event which was held at the Latvian Hall. The tape shows an
audience replete with racist skinheads and other extremists
of various stripes. Periodically right hands cut through the
air with the Nazi salute and the hall reverberated with the
shouts of "Zeig heil", "white power", "hail The Order" and
"nigger, nigger, nigger . out out out. 

Fromm addressed the gathering from a podium bearing the
Heritage Front insignia and its motto "Our Race is our
Nation". Behind him and to the sides, the stage was
ornamented with huge banners including the Nazi swastika
flag of Hitler' s Third Reich, the emblem of the violently
racist (and now virtually defunct) Church of the Creator,
and some other flags appropriated by various racist groups
such as the flag of the Confederacy (Klu Klux Klan) and the
Celtic cross (often worn by racist  skinheads as a shoulder
patch or tattoo.)

At the rally, Fromm reminisced about the Latvian Hall
bringing back memories of the good old Edmund Burke Society
days. The hall, for a quarter of a century in fact, has
given meeting space to rabid racists. Even up to late 1993
and 1994 the Latvian Hall was a preferred site of groups
like the Heritage Front amongst others. In 1992, it was a
venue for a secretive Hitler birthday bash attended by more
than 100 racists.

Fromm's "Martyr's Day" speech provided some specifically
Canadian content. It paid tribute to the late John Ross
Taylor, whom Fromm praised for "60 years of dedication to
his beliefs" and described as a "Canadian hero''.
Taylor, whose Nazi career in Canada dates from the 1920's,
had been jailed twice for contempt of court for his refusal
to terminate racist telephone messages attacking minorities.
"We are all on the same side" Fromm told his
listeners, adding:

"We are up against ....an army of occupation, where we the
majority have no rights and the only way that we are going
to regain our country is through unity, unity, unity".

Fromm of course was not spreading of Canadian unity, but of
unifying the radical racist right.

Tellingly, Fromm continually disavowed any association with
the 'Martyr's Day Rally". He outrightly denied giving any
speech at the rally until challenged by a Toronto Sun
reporter who confronted him with a copy of the video showing
Fromm addressing the rally.

Although Fromm later claimed to have been disturbed by what
he saw at the Heritage Front 's Martyr' s Day rally, his
involvement was no aberration. Less than one year later, on
September 5th, 1991 Fromm was the keynote speaker at the
Heritage Front's so-called "Open Forum on Canada's
Immigration Policy", its first "public" meeting.

A television report of the meeting showed that among those
cheering him in the audience were a number of racist
skinheads. During the 80's Fromm appears to have attempted
to recruit young skinheads with a white supremacist bent,
with some newspapers reporting skinheads provided security
for speakers involved with Fromm in his speaking tours
across Ontario and the rest of Canada. And in March 1990,
Fromm spoke at a gathering in Guelph Ontario, organized by
an upcoming young neo-Nazi skinhead star, George Burdi.
Under the false name George Norriss, Burdi was trying to
start up a Guelph University chapter of Fromm's C-FAR and
had rented a room at the Albion Hotel for an introductory
speech by Fromm.

When Burdi's rally was publicly reported a series of student
protests were organized. In fact, a students' group
purchased almost all the tickets and during Fromm's speech,
turned their back and spoke loudly to each other as a piece
of "Street Theatre" denouncing Fromm and Burdi. Later both
Fromm and Burdi required a police escort to leave the Hotel.

But of late Fromm's audiences seem to have shrunk to a core
of mainly older men and women. As a result of his activities
in the early 1 990's, complaints were made to the Peel Board
of Education (his employer) and to the Ontario Ministry of
Education regarding Mr. Fromm' s suitability to be a public
high school teacher. Following interventions by a range of
groups including Canadian Jewish Congress, Ontario Region,
the Native Canadian Centre, the Canadian Council of
Christians and Jews, B'nai Brith Canada amongst others, the
Ontario Minister of Education called an inquiry appointing
J.G. Cowan, a lawyer with Weir and Folds to adjudicate. In a
wide ranging report Mr. Cowan noted of particular interest
that Mr. Fromm's publications from CAFE and another of his
organizations C-FAR

     "...pandered to those who view crime and social
     problems as a consequence of admitting visible minority
     persons as immigrants or refugees ... (the) Crime Watch
     section has the potential to develop or reinforce
     racist attitudes towards visible minorities."

As a direct result of Mr. Cowan' s report, Paul Fromm was
removed as a high school teacher and reassigned to teach
adult education.

Fromm continues, well into 1996, to make common cause with -
and give succor to - some of Canada's most notorious racist
extremists. In March 1996 he was to have appeared at the
Surry Inn, in British Columbia as a guest speaker for the
Second Canadian Free Speech Conference which was being
sponsored by one of Fromm's organizations, CAFE. Amongst
those who were scheduled to speak were Holocaust deniers
Ernst Zundel, North Shore News columnist and Holocaust
denier Doug Collins, as well as fellow "teachers" and
antisemites Malcolm Ross and James Keegstra.

Also in March 1996 a planned speaking engagement by Paul
Fromm in Edmonton was thwarted as a result of demonstrations
held by anti-racist protesters in front of the hotel. Even
as late as September 1996, Paul Fromm was seen to be
supporting Ron Gostick of the Canadian League of Rights who
was seeking a hotel to hold what ostensibly was to be a
discussion on the pros and cons of Quebec separation. Once
again as a result of pressure brought to bear by anti-racist
groups in Edmonton, the hotel in question canceled the
group's contract. Fromm came immediately to the defense of
his colleague in a letter he wrote to the hotel, attempting
to discredit Professor David Lethbridge of the Salmon Arms
Coalition Against Racism.

In his letter, Fromm said:

     "I am also sending you excerpts from our recent Free
     Speech monitor (a series of pamphlets produced by Paul
     Fromm supporting the rights of neo-Nazis to free
     speech) on activities and statements by Lethbridge who
     incidentally refuses to debate with such distinguished
     supporters of freedom as British war hero Doug Collins
     of the North Shore News in Vancouver."

Collins is presently facing a human rights complaint in
British Columbia stemming from his outspoken support of
Holocaust denial and deniers. Paul Fromm continues to run
into trouble. On December 11, 1996 at a public forum to
commemorate "International Human Rights Day" B'nai Brith
Canada's League of Human Rights, accused Paul Fromm of:

     "... continuing to associate with known white
     supremacists, and to make speeches against Canada's
     multicultural/multiracial society, in blatant violation
     of a Peel Board (of Education) ruling that prohibits
     such conduct."

During the course of the forum, audience members were shown
excerpts from an appearance by Paul Fromm at the "Revilo P.
Oliver Memorial Symposium" in November 1994. The symposium
was organized by the National Alliance, a large U.S. Nazi
propaganda organization, whose leader William L. Pearce was
the author of the infamous "Turner Diaries." The novel about
guerrilla warfare waged against Blacks, Jews and the U.S.
government, is billed "a handbook for white victory".
Tragically it appears as though the bombing of the Oklahoma
City Alfred P. Murrah building in April 1995 mirrors a
fictional episode written about in the "Turner Diaries." In
its book "Extremism on the Right," the Anti-Defamation
League describes the National Alliance as a "neo Hitlerian,
racist, and antisemitic extremist group."<"Extremism on the
Right: A Handbook," Anti-Defamation League, New York, N.Y.>

Revilo P. Oliver was one of America's most notorious
fascists and, according to B'nai Brith Canada a "long time
proponent of antisemitism".

An advertisement for the video appeared in National
Vanguard, house organ for Pearce's National Alliance group.
The ad had this to say of the symposium's namesake:

Dr. Revilo P. Oliver was one of this centuries greatest
thinkers and writers.......he was one of the very few
academicians to fully perceive the threats to America and to
western man. He was one of the founders of the John Birch
Society ........when he realized that conservatism was a
lost cause in America, he appealed to Americans to make a
final and uncompromising stand for survival of America's
founding race, a cause he championed until his death
...These speakers are speaking from the heart and speaking
of the greatest issue the survival of the European race - of
this or any other century. ,

Fromm himself seemed well in tune with the symposium's
sentiments. Excerpts from Fromm's speech were read aloud at
the International Human Rights Day forum:

     "If we are going to be true to our Aryan spirit, to the
     very best of our people, which is reason [for] doing
     what Aryan man has always done facing reality [it was
     necessary] "to recapture the greatness of our race's
     spirit and then we can retake this continent."

Amongst other honoured guests at its symposium were former
Ku Klux Klan leader and well known right-wing extremist
David Duke. The Revilo P. Oliver Memorial Symposium
concluded with the singing of "Deutschland Uber Alles."

Karen Mock, B'nai Brith Director of the League of Human
Rights, reiterated the earlier call of the CJC and the
Native Canadian Center for the Peel Board of Education to
fire Paul Fromm as a teacher:

     "If he must continue his racist free speech' campaign,
     let him not do it as a teacher."

Both Fromm, the propagandist, and Droege, the movement
leader, are linked, not just through their attendance at
each other's meetings, but also through a mutual associate
and friend - Ernst Zundel.

(As this report was being printed, Ernst Zundel revealed on
his internet site that Fromm has been notified of the
termination of his employment with the Peel Board due to his
continued association with racists and antisemites. Fromm
has indicated he will fight the dismissal.)

Home ·  Site Map ·  What's New? ·  Search Nizkor