Arbeit Macht Frei
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
In October 2008 Töben was detained Fredrick Töben, born on 2 June 1944 at London’s Heathrow Airport while in Arbeit macht frei: in Jaderberg, Germany, came to transit because German authorities Australia with his family late in 1954 attempted to extradite him from the UK and completed his schooling here. under a European Arrest Warrant for Arbeit macht frei: From 1963 he studied English, German allegedly publishing ‘antisemitic and/or and philosophy at the University of revisionist’ material on his website. impertinent incarceration Melbourne and Victoria University of The warrant did not fulfil British legal Wellington, New Zealand, where he requirements: Töben was released from also commenced his secondary school Wandsworth Prison after the German teaching career. In 1971 he began government was advised that an appeal philosophy studies at the universities would fail because it is not an offence to of Heidelberg, Tübingen and Stuttgart express an opinion, except in countries where he completed a DPhil in 1977. where Holocaust denial is criminalised. impertinent incarceration The German authorities later stated their After secondary and tertiary teaching intention to attempt to extradite him from in Germany, Rhodesia-Zimbabwe other jurisdictions in the future. and Nigeria, he joined Victoria’s state school system but was dismissed from Unsurprisingly, in April 2009 Töben was Goroke School near Edenhope in found guilty of the contempt-of-court 1984 on the grounds of incompetence charge. In August 2009 the Federal and disobedience. He ultimately Court rejected his appeal against his won a decade-long court battle with 3-month jail sentence. Arbeit macht Victoria’s Department of Education on a frei: impertinent incarceration is his technicality when the judge declared the story of that battle and his one week in dismissal to be of no legal effect. maximum security’s punishment block From 1983 to 1993 he was the at Adelaide’s Yatala Labour Prison and director of Toben International Pty Ltd his 12 weeks at Cadell Training Centre, Import-Export specialising in exporting a low-security prison farm in South Australian honey. In 1994 he established Australia’s Riverland. Since his release the privately funded Adelaide Institute in in November 2009 Töben has continued Adelaide, South Australia and remained his crusade. its director until 2009. Töben is a Holocaust questioner. He was found guilty of ‘offending the memory of the dead’ in 1999 for his Holocaust- denial activity in Germany. He served 7 months of a 10-month sentence in Mannheim Prison for ‘defaming the dead’ under Germany’s Holocaust Law. HITLER TÖBEN In 2002 Australia’s Federal Court found Fredrick Töben that Töben’s website ‘vilified Jewish The montage on the back cover was people’ and ordered him to remove the sent to me by an unknown person while offensive material. Regularly denying in a European prison. In German it says: that he is anti-Semitic, Töben wiped the ‘Capitulate? Never!’. It was pasted on website and began again. cardboard and there is an unobtrusive pocket at the lower left containing a In December 2006 Töben attended the razorblade. The prison mail system International Holocaust Conference delivered this to my cell. It was only at Teheran, Iran. Australia’s Jewry when I pried between the cardboard initiated Federal Court contempt-of- montage that I noticed the pocket court proceedings, which began after contained a razorblade. It surprised me FREDRICK TÖBEN his return to Adelaide, for breaching somewhat that this card made it through the order to refrain from publishing the the severe prison postal censorship. material. ARBEIT MACHT FREI IMPERTINENT INCARCERATION Fredrick Töben PEACE BOOKS Adelaide 2010 PEACE BOOKS Adelaide 2010 National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Author: Töben, G. F. (Gerald Fredrick), 1944- Title: Arbeit macht frei : impertinent incarceration / Fredrick Töben. ISBN: 9780958546669 (pbk.) Notes: Includes index. Subjects: Contempt of court--South Australia. Detention of persons--South Australia--Riverlands. Holocaust denial. Dewey Number: 940.5318 Dedicated to: John Tuson Bennett, Christopher J Mayo Steele and the memory of Geoff Muirden, whose four decades of pioneering work set the Revisionist ball rolling in Australia; Peter Hartung who has embraced Adelaide Institute’s motto viam monstrare – showing the way; and those South Australian men and women who dared to pioneer a new attitude towards penal servitude. ______________________ A fair minded person believes what he does because he believes firmly it is the truth and as such is willing to discuss it with any other fair minded one. He is willing for it to be sifted and tested to the uttermost, for he does not want to believe what is untrue and he knows that truth will stand any real tests, and too, the more it is tested, the more it can be seen to be the truth. He is willing to concede that those who differ from him are sincere until the opposite is disclosed and this disclosure of insincerity will not be his defeat in argument. If he is defeated in arguments, he will not try to relieve himself of his defeat by slandering the opponent, but he will thank him for enabling him to see his weakness and the faultiness of his belief. Dr Peeples, 1912 You who dwell ... On eagles wings who abide in His shadow for life, say to the Lord: 'My refuge, my God in whom I trust!' And He will raise you up on eagles' wings, bear you on the breath of dawn, make you to shine like the sun, and hold you in the palm of His hand. The snare of the fowler will never capture you, and famine will bring you no fear: under His wings your refuge, His faithfulness your shield. And He will raise you up on eagles' wings, bear you on the breath of dawn, make you to shine like the sun, and hold you in the palm of His hand. You need not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day; though thousands fall about you, near you it shall not come. And He will raise you up on eagles' wings, bear you on the breath of dawn, make you to shine like the sun, and hold you in the palm of His hand. For to His angels He's given a command to guard you in all of your ways' upon their hands they will bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. And He will raise you up on eagles' wings, bear you on the breath of dawn, make you to shine like the sun, and hold you in the palm of His hand. Anon. CONTENTS List of Illustrations vii Foreword ix Prelude 1 1 A Media Field Day 18 2 The Issue: Truth and Justice 29 3 Message of Hope 41 4 Asking Questions 48 5 Cui Bono – In Whose Interest? 85 6 Holocaust Propaganda Before Christmas, Legal Persecution After New Year 98 7 Why Write Another Book About Prison Life? 102 8 Moral Turpitude? 111 9 Free Expression Tested in Court 116 10 A Friend of the Court 132 11 Observers in Court 141 12 Character-Building Discipline 157 13 A Late Prison Induction 173 14 A Right of Reply 183 15 Submissions to the Federal Attorney-General 201 16 Thinking about Cadell Training Centre 235 17 A Commemorative Booklet 255 18 Cadell Training Centre 265 19 Arbeit Macht Frei 280 20 Prison Transparency 287 21 Fishy Story 292 22 No Food Problems 296 23 Visitors 300 24 Education 309 25 Re-educating Whom? 322 v 26 Pottery Ceramics 335 27 A Moment of Grief 347 28 Dirk Zimmermann’s Trial 385 29 South Australia’s Myth of Westminster’s Separation of Powers 387 30 Political Prisoner James Patrick Earley 399 31 My Moment of Shame 410 32 Welcome Home 412 Postscript 427 Epilogue 437 vi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Adding Jesse Owen’s name to the Olympic Archway 107 Sir Walter Crocker and Fredrick Töben protesting, 1991 107 Fredrick Töben with Sir Walter Crocker at morning tea 107 Fredrick Töben saluting outside the Federal Court, Adelaide 108 Federal Court Appeal records 108 Fredrick Töben at Colonel Light’s statue, Adelaide 108 Fredrick Töben inside the Federal Court of Australia 109 Fernilee Lodge before it was demolished 109 Fredrick Töben outside the Federal Court, Adelaide 109 Yatala Labour Prison, Adelaide 110 Yatala Labour Prison’s wall, Adelaide 110 G Division at Yatala Labour Prison, Adelaide 110 The site for Cadell Training Centre’s water pumping station 247 Cadell’s 30 000 gallon domestic water supply 247 Plan of the main area of the Cadell Training Centre, 1960 248 Plan of the CTC’s crop area, 1960 249 Housing for Cadell’s staff 250 A general view of Cadell’s Administration Building 250 Cadell’s Dormitory Block 251 A developed area at Cadell, 2010 251 The Murray River and the 2000-acre prison farm 252 The Cadell Training Centre 252 The Cadell Training Centre layout 253 The inmates’ walk track 254 Some prisoners are trained as emergency fire fighters 254 Fredrick Töben’s ID for South Australian prisons 339 Fredrick Töben’s ID for English prisons 339 Fredrick Töben’s ID for Mannheim Prison 339 vii The Cadell Courier publication for prisoners 340 A painter hard at work! 340 In the orange grove 341 A painted and upgraded irrigation cage 341 Prison contraband 342 Contraband tattoo kit, Mobilong Prison 342 The CTC Christian group’s invitation 342 Danny Eastwood’s cartoon, 2009 343 The post painter in action 343 US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s letter, 1995 344 My mother before being cremated 345 A piece of cremation equipment 345 Dissenters Liu Xiaobo and Horst Mahler 345 Upon release from the Cadell Training Centre 346 Peter Hartung 346 My homecoming party 429 More guests – a selection of average Australian citizens 429 A musical item 430 A memento for a freedom fighter 431 My calender for keeping track of the time at Cadell 432 David Brockschmidt 432 Alan Goldberg’s letter Joyce Steele, 1 July 1985 433 A scene from Andrzej Wajda's new movie 434 A memory of my Mannheim Prison days, 1999 435 Fredrick Töben’s circumstances and those of Richard Pratt 435 A sense of freedom at Cadell Training Centre 436 Fredrick Töben’s office 436 viii FOREWORD A Pattern of Success Includes Enemy-Within Sabotage This is a story about a Revisionist who dares to challenge the legal system’s constraints imposed on his quest to seek historical truths, in particular about the Holocaust-Shoah.