speech and respect - College of Social Sciences and International ...

The Struggle for Respect
for demonstrations and prohibiting racial hatred and military
uniforms, the ACLU sued to enjoin enforcement. Its Public Relations
Director said that "those who preach changes in constitutional law
are the enemy, possessed of sinister motive and intent. . .."He and
his family received death threats. A Holocaust survivor called ACLU
lawyer David Goldberger "A rotten person and an opportunist. . . .
during the Nazi era ... we had people like that. They were
collaborators." Goldberger's own rabbi denounced him during
services. Skokie Holocaust survivors, a close and somewhat isolated
community, rejected the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League policy
of ignoring the Nazis. One explained: "The minute somebody
comes and tries to attack my home, I have to defend myself." When
Collin threatened to march without a permit, Jewish Defense League
leader Meir Kahane told the press: "the streets of Skokie will run with
Nazi blood." Collin was delighted with the response: "I used [the
First Amendment] at Skokie. I planned the reaction of the Jews. They
are hysterical." When a state appellate court permitted him to march
but not display swastikas, he was defiant: "This is my party identification,
that is my symbol, and we will not be parted from it." Finally
allowed by the state supreme court to flaunt the swastika, Collin
threatened to march on Hitler's birthday. More then a hundred
organisations of Blacks, Latinos, and Ukrainians joined Jews in
promising to mobilise 50,000 people for a counter-demonstration;
the JDL, Jewish War Veterans, and Coalition Against Violence(!)
threatened to attack the NSPA. Israeli Prime Minister Menachem
Begin visited the village and gave Mayor Smith an expense-paid trip
to Israel, where he was presented with the keys to Jerusalem.
Fearing the counterdemonstration might overwhelm his own and
endanger him physically, Collin was persuaded by the U.S. Justice
Department's Community Relations Service to march at the Federal
Plaza courthouse in downtown Chicago. Over the shouts of more
than 6000 anti-Nazis, few could hear Collin's cry that "the creatures
should be gassed." Yet he claimed ultimate victory.
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We faced the alternatives of either dying or coming up with
something so dramatic that we could get it up in the world's
headlines. In the courts I was a mouse in a maze, so this was an
end-run .... Skokie was traumatic. We lost many members.
Many older people left us because the Jews were on television and
said they'd kill us. Even hard core people left us. There's a parallel
to Hitler. He had many people until the Putsch. Then he found