The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime, and the punishment of his guilt.

[John Philpott Curran, 1750-1817]

Ken McVay is a 67-year-old Canadian - a leader in developing and implementing community-based, grass roots strategies for countering the lies of those promoting hatred on the Internet.

Ken
The work McVay's been doing, now known as The Nizkor Project, has consumed nearly 16 years of his life.

He was compelled to counter the deceit of holocaust deniers and hate mongers after running across virulently antisemitic material on the Internet in January of 1992. It had been posted by Dan Gannon, from Portland, Oregon, and included malignant doses of Nazi propaganda. Offended at the nature of this material, McVay began making trips to the local library in search of Holocaust information, and borrowing books on the subject.

He began what has now become his life's work, rereading many of the three hundred books about World War II that he had read as a teenager and reading for the first time countless additional books specifically about the Holocaust. He transcribed relevant information into his computer and then used this documentation to refute the specific claims made by Mr. Gannon.

McVay often spent 18 to 20 hours a day typing, and soon found that he had somehow amassed over 3500 pages of information. As the flood of information increased, so did demands for the information; requests inundated McVay's electronic mailbox, and he soon found himself a defacto, full-time Holocaust researcher and librarian to the world of the Internet.

Today he has built one of the most extensive and thorough information sources about the Holocaust and the activities of racists and white supremacists in the world. McVay devotes countless hours to the maintenance and improvement of this massive collection, which now exceeds one million pages.

McVay has directed an effort to enhance what has become the world's largest Holocaust-resource Web site. Within the past few years, thousands of pages of information have been added, including the complete transcripts of the first Nuremberg Military Tribunal and the Trial of Adolf Eichmann. Since May 1995, Nizkor has placed over 12,000 pages on the web, and delivered millions pages of text to interested users worldwide Nizkor's Toronto servers provide over seventeen gigabytes of data per month.

The Nizkor site has proven itself an invaluable tool for Holocaust researchers, the media, students, and those concerned with the alarming rise of neo-Nazi activity on the Internet.

In recognition of the value of McVay's work to the people and province, he was awarded the Order of British Columbia in 1995 - the highest honour the Provincial government can bestow upon a citizen, and a special Media Human Rights Award, presented by B'nai Brith Canada in March of 1996.

Ken is a popular speaker, and travels extensively throughout North America, conducting workshops and seminars dealing with Holocaust denial and hate speech on the Internet. To arrange an appearance for your organization, contact Ken.

Personal stuff

  1. Personal Trivia (For the seriously bored.)
  2. Personal Blather (For the terminally bored.)

Other articles & interviews

Links about hearing loss

Links of personal interest

Ken is the proud father of four (and the delighted grandfather of eight) marvelous children. He earns his living as a consultant, working from his home on Vancouver Island.

Ken prefers classic Delta and Chicago Blues and Grand Opera to today's "screech rock," and lists Beethoven's Ninth Symphony as his favourite classical piece. Alas, after seven years of construction and maintenance work in British Columbia sawmills, and years of addiction to high-end audio, Ken suffered permanent hearing loss and now wears Widex Senso hearing aids... so turn the volume down, folks. You'll be glad you did :-)

He has maintained a lifelong interest in motor sport, although his racing days are well behind him, and would like to park the Super 7 GSX 1300R in his driveway before he's too old to enjoy it :-)

Ken prefers dark beers to the strange mixtures typically run through the horse before being bottled by major breweries, and ranks Guinness as his all-time favourite brew.

Born and raised in the Santa Clara Valley (California), Ken married in 1961, and moved his family (including the family Bassett Hound) to British Columbia in 1967.

Ken is a former U.S. Marine, and a dual-citizen.

Table of Contents

Stuff I like....
beer Newcastle Brown Ale, Waterloo Dark, Ruddles County Ale
cognac Remy Martin Grand Champagne, Martel Cordon Bleu
comedian John Cleese
comedy group Monty Python's Flying Circus (who else?)
deli's Montreal: Schwartz's - go for the smoked meat platter!
Toronto: Wolfie's, 670 Sheppard Avenue W. (The corned beef sandwich is simply Canada's best.)
dog(?) Bassett Hound
hideaway Astoria, Oregon
lady (she knows who she is)
pizza joints
La Cantina, Hamilton, Ontario
politician Pierre Elliot Trudeau
resolution Never to let Lucy hold that football again
scifi book Endor's Game (Orson Scott Card)
sports cars MGTD & BGT, Austin-Healy Sprite, Lotus 7 Mk IV
stout Guinness, of course, draft preferred; Murphy's will do in a pinch
wine (red) I'm kind of partial to Australian Shiraz & Merlots. The Wolf Blass label, from Bilyara Cellars, is one of my favourites.
wine (white) Jackson-Triggs VQA Chardonnay

You can email Ken

[ Table of Contents | The Nizkor Project ]