Kenneth McVay

Kenneth ( " Ken " ) McVay, OBC ( born 1940 in Santa Clara, California) is the founder and operator of the largest site on the Holocaust and Holocaust denial on the Internet, the Nizkor Project. He is considered one of the best connoisseurs of the Internet scene on the topics of anti-Semitism and right-wing historical revisionism, which is dedicated to fighting it for about 20 years.

Life

To protect himself and his family against attacks that are constantly threatened him for his commitment, McVay has released little information about its origin, Youth and past practices. He grew up in California, was trained in the United States Marine Corps, married in 1961 and moved in 1967 with his family in the Canadian province of British Columbia. He has dual citizenship of the U.S. and Canada. He lives on Vancouver Iceland, but keeps his actual domicile secret. He has four children and eight grandchildren.

His living he earned with various activities, including seven years as a designer and operators of sawmills and pumping gas. He currently works from his private apartment as a web designer and consultant.

As hobbies he gives to classical and blues music, but suffered a permanent hearing loss. He is interested in motorsport and at times even took an active part in motorcycle racing part.

The Nizkor Project

In January 1992, McVay met by chance on the internet for the first time on anti-Semitic postings of neo-Nazis Dan Gannon. He attended then the local library and found out that its claims about the Holocaust were invented false and free. The detailed justification of this discovery, he sent the newsgroup alt.revisionism: From the idea to collect appropriate material facts in order to counter the propaganda of Holocaust deniers in the network effectively developed.

In a self-taught training McVay read hundreds of books about the Holocaust and the Second World War. He processed what they read and wrote from their own web texts to educate lay people, especially young people, about facts and background of the period of National Socialism and the Nazi genocide and Holocaust deniers to respond directly. He dedicated this work, often up to 20 hours a day, so that he soon had created about 3,500 sites.

To the same extent as his private collection of facts demand by many network users grew after further understand, compressed and precise occupied education about the Holocaust. McVay could no longer do the work alone and, therefore, founded in 1995, the Nizkor Project, which is supported by a team of volunteer labor. It is financed only by donations and own performance.

From this, a comprehensive archive of exact and tested primary sources grew on the Holocaust and carefully prepared rebuttals of the arguments of Holocaust deniers. The project now offers over a million pages. It is thus one of the largest and best online services in this subject area. The project 's server in Toronto process over seventeen gigabytes of data each month.

Education rather than prohibitions

McVay is of the opinion that one can not deal effectively with prohibitions and laws, but only with facts and unmasking of contradictions, lies and fabrications of hate propaganda on the Internet. His work had an influence on political decisions, such as the legislation on so-called Hate crimes in Canada, where he appeared in 1996 before the Parliament.

Attacks of opponents

McVay does not represent any particular ideological or political orientation. But he sees himself daily personal attacks and death threats exposed. He explains the hatred that the beating of him in numerous e- mails, Hetzaufrufen and organized Diskreditierungsversuchen, with the frustration of those affected who see their lies completely uncovered by a private individual, which can not be classified as a Jew or Zionist.

Honors

Many university faculties of Canada and the United States to link the sides of the Nizkor Project as an excellent source for additional research.

For his volunteer work against Holocaust denial McVay received in 1995 the highest medal of the Canadian province of British Columbia for citizens. He also received a special media prize for Human Rights of B'nai Brith of Canada in March 1996.