He’s declared 5G a bio-engineered virus and that the United Nations is inspired by Satanic teachings. But as Billy Te Kahika’s wilder conspiracies grabbed headlines, his rhetoric touched on a darker subject.

On June 4, Billy Te Kahika took to Facebook live, as he regularly does, to deliver a sermon to his devotees.

By now these “prayer studies” are nothing new. In May, Te Kahika went viral with videos that weave scripture, 5G, Covid-19, Harry Potter, vaccines, the Labour government, Bill Gates and the UN into narratives of sinister plots to corrupt and control the world…

…in a video seen by more than 5000, the leader of the New Zealand Public Party spins a story about the Jewish nation. Using historical half-truths and debunked documents he enlightens his audience about its connection to a Satanic conspiracy, and a global plan to engineer a third world war.

He’s at pains to coat the language, expressing love for his “Israeli whānau”, and asserting that although the Jews killed Jesus, it’s only the Zionists, those Jews behind the nation of Israel, that are the real threat.

“It’s a Satanic deception.”

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Mt Hutt pioneer and former Nazi Waffen-SS soldier Willi Huber has died, aged 98.

Hailing from Austria, Huber arrived in New Zealand in 1953 on a two-year work visa. A mountain guide by trade, he was curious about the mountains and thought he would visit for just the two years to work and explore.

Just as he was set to return to Austria, he met his future wife, Edna. He stayed and the couple married and had four children. They remained together up until his death on August 9, spanning 65 years.

At 17, Huber volunteered for the Waffen-SS, the military branch of the Nazi Party’s feared SS, where he served as a machine-gunner and then as a gunner in Panzer tanks.

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Former Nazi Waffen-SS soldier Willi Huber died recently, aged 96. Having lived in New Zealand since 1953, Huber made a name for himself as one of the ‘founding fathers’ of Canterbury’s Mt Hutt ski area. Hailed as a ‘heartland hero’, locals have appeared willing to ignore his Nazi past. 

In a 2017 TVNZ interview, Huber denied knowledge of the war crimes committed by the Waffen SS or German forces, or of the Nazi murder of about six million European Jews and millions of others, many of whom died in concentration camps run by the SS.

Speaking to the Holocaust and Antisemitism Foundation from Jerusalem this week, renowned Nazi Hunter and Director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center office in Jerusalem, Dr Efraim Zuroff commented:

As a historian, I can state unequivocally that serving in a Waffen-SS unit on the Eastern front, there is no way that Mr Huber could possibly not have been aware of the massive atrocities carried out by the SS and the Wehrmacht in the territories of the Soviet Union, where 1,500,000 “enemies of the Reich,” primarily Jews, were murdered individually during the years 1941-1943.

Huber’s statements ring incredibly hollow in the face of the historical record of the Holocaust on the Eastern front. If we add the fact that he volunteered for the SS, and his comments that Hitler was “very clever,” and that he “offered [Austrians] a way out”  of the hardships after World War I, it’s clear that Mr. Huber was an unrepentant Nazi, who doesn’t deserve any sympathy or recognition.

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There’s been a significant increase in the amount of Jewish New Zealanders who think antisemitism is a “very big” or a “fairly big” problem, according to a new survey of New Zealand’s Jewish community.

Back in 2008 when the last such survey – Changing Jewry (Gen08) – was conducted, more than four out of five respondents (84%) thought that antisemitism was not a serious issue in New Zealand.

But in the Shifting Jewry 2019 (Gen19) survey, which was launched last weekend, 44% of respondents indicated that they thought antisemitism was either a “very big” or a “fairly big” problem.

While 50% still do not think antisemitism is a serious issue in New Zealand, the growth in the number of respondents that do is considerable.

For report co-author Jim Salinger, the change in perceptions of antisemitism is one of the big changes in this survey, as compared to three earlier community surveys.

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